Autobiographical notes of the life of William Bell Scott : and notices of his artistic and poetic circle of friends, 1830 to 1882

3 1822 00132 8632

3 1822 00132 8632

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AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

OF THE LIFE OF

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

//. R.S.A. , LL.D.

4^

Etcbea 3y Himself.

A

UTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

OF THE LIFE OF

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

/y.R.S.A., LL.D. //

And Notices of his Artistic and Poetic

Circle of Friends

1830 to 1882

Edited by W. MINTO

lllnstrated by Etchings by Himselj
and Reproductions of Sketches by Himself and Friends

VOL. II

LONDON
JAMES R. OSGOOD, McILVAINE & CO.

45 Albemarle Street, W.
mdcccxcii

All rights 7-cserved

CONTENTS OF VOL. II

CHAPTER I

Dr. Sa:muel Brown — Sir Walter and Lady Trevelyan
AND MY Pictures at Wallington — John Ruskin

CHAPTER H

First Appearance of A. C. Swinburne — An Amusing
Experience with Thomas Carlyle — Death of
Dr. Samuel Brown . . .14

CHAPTER HI

Resume OF Letters from Friends in London, 1856-58

— Additions to the Circle there . .28

CHAPTER IV

Resume of Letters from Friends, 1859-60-61 — The
Rossettis, Holman Hunt, Woolner, Munro,
etc. — Lady Trevelyan — Miss Boyd . . 46

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

CHAPTER V

I'AGE

Death of Mrs. Rossetti — Anecdotes of Wallington
— My Series of Pictures of Border History

BEING finished, I LEAVE NEWCASTLE ReTURN

to London . . . .64

CHAPTER VI

Penkill Castle and Miss Boyd — Death of Spencer
Boyd — My Painting of the Staircase —
Maclise . . . . -73

CHAPTER Vn

Letters from Holman Hunt, Jerusalem, 1870-71 . 88

CHAPTER Vni

1868 to 1870 — My "King's Quair" Pictures at
Penkill finished — D. G. R. spends Autumns

1868-69 there with us recommences his

Poetic Studies — The Franco-German War —
My Removal to 92 Cheyne Walk, September
1870 ..... 107

CHAPTER LX

Letters from D. G. Rossetti, Autumn 1871, at
Kelmscott — On his own Poetry then in
Progress — Also on Mine . . .127

CONTENTS

CHAPTER X

i68

PAGE

1 8 7 2 — RossETTi's Illness — Stobhall

CHAPTER XI

1873— ^iY LAST VISIT TO ItaLY— Dr. FrANZ HuEFFER

— F. M. Brown . . . .182

CHAPTER XII

The Rising Generation in Poetry, 1875 . . 193

CHAPTER XIII

My Poems published 1875 — Alma Tadema — My
" Dedicatio Postica "

202

CHAPTER XIV
HoLMAN Hunt's Picture "The Flight into Egypt,"

NOW CALLED " ThE TrIUMPH OF THE INNOCENTS " 221

CHAPTER XV
Spiritualism . . . . -235

CHAPTER XVI

Death of G. H. Lewes and George Eliot — Of
R. N. Wornum — Of Sir Walter Trevelyan
AND Lady Pauline .... 244

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

CHAPTER XVII

PAGE

More Deaths — Thomas Dixon of Sunderland —

Richard Burchett — Solomon Hart . .264

CHAPTER XVIII
Artistic Inquiries, 1879-80 . . .278

CHAPTER XIX

Penkill — IB (Miss Boyd), 1880 . . .291

CHAPTER XX and Last
My "Poet's Harvest Home" — Death of Rossetti 303

CHAPTER XXI

Concluding Chapter by Editor . . .321

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. II

ETCHINGS AND PHOTOGRAVURES

Portrait of Author. Profile. Etching by himself . Froniispiece
A. C. Swinburne. Ef thing by IV. B. S. . To face page i8

Miss Bo)'d. Drawn by D. G. R. Etched by W. B. S.
Penkill Castle. PJiotogT'avure . . . .

Staircase of Penkill. From a pai?iting by A. Hughes
Design for Door, South Kensington. By W. B. S.
Fireplace, etc., at Stobhall. By IV. B. S.
Exterior of Hall, Penkill. Photogravure
Interior of Hall. From a painting by A. Hughes
Bedroom in Penkill Castle. Phoiosrravure

56

74

82

170

172

324
326
328

FACSIMILES OF SKETCHES

" Mr. Porcupine." Sketch by Lady Pauline Trevelyan . page 52

Roll Moulding, Penkill Castle „ 74

D. G. R. in Bennan's Cave. Sketch by IV. B. S. . . ,,115

Human-headed Vases. Sketch by VV. B. S. . . . ,,289

In the Glen at Penkill. Sketch by H. A. Bowler . . ,, 296

Monograms of Scotch Lawyers in i6th Century . . ,, 301

CHAPTER I

DR. SAMUEL BROWN SIR WALTER AND LADY TRE-

VELVAN AND MY PICTURES AT WALLINGTON — JOHN
RUSKIN.

Notwithstanding my reluctance to re-enter Edin-
burgh, I had many occasions to go there, and to find
myself among friends. One of these most pleasant
to meet was Samuel Brown, who had established his
laboratory in suburban Portobello. His physical
science repudiated my poem The Year of the
World, or rather, I should say, discredited the
perfectibility of the human creature, although it
carried him in his own theories any length in
ameliorating the conditions of the body ! As years
passed on his health prevented his working and
deprived him of the mental exuberance so exciting
and amusing in earlier life, and he, like so many
others, returned to his native lair to die. His and
my brother's latest literary circle gradually broke
up ; he saw nothing of Professor Nichol, De Ouincey,

^'VOL. II B

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

and even of Gilfillan, and other younger men ; and
his most assiduous friend Mrs. Crowe, whose cares
for him were almost as great as those of his devoted
wife, disappeared from Edinburgh through a deeper
species of malady than even his own. The Night
Side of Nature and the Seeress of Prcvorst had
taken too strong a hold of her mind, quick and
active as it was ; her faith in new and unknown
conditions of life suspended that in the ordinary laws
of nature. Still she was constant to Samuel Brown,
her bodily strength being unimpaired, till one
Sunday morning, leaving her bed, she quietly escaped
the observation of her attendants, and armed only
with a card in her hand inscribed with three mystical
marks which she believed rendered her invisible,
sallied out to visit him. Fortunately it was a Scotch
Sabbath-day, not a soul was within sight. She had
gone but a few steps in George Street, not far from
her own door, when she was met by an astonished
medical friend known to both, who threw over her
his top-coat and took her back to her house. This
was the painful gossip of the time, and in effect this
lady, so much respected by the Edinburgh literary
coteries, vanished from among them. In fact,
except Samuel's cousin, Dr. John Brown, the author
of Rab and his Friends and much else ; and some
early friends — Ballantine, Steell, now Sir John, the
sculptor, Sir William Harvey, the painter of
Covenanter celebrity — I knew so few that I could
walk the streets a whole day without being
recognised.

I S/J^ WALTER AND LADY TREVELYAN 3

De Quincey was the last left of the illustrious
literati of the previous generation, and he had
become more and more erratic in his habits. I
have always found original genius of a concentrated
and peculiar kind the most dangerous endowment ;
it is only the Shakespeare or the Goethe who can
carry out unalloyed the specific energy, and retain
manhood and rational common sense in all the
affairs of life ; poets like Byron or Shelley could not
do so.

However, this chajDter is intended to deal with
other matters, and I introduced Dr. Samuel Brown,
not to describe his circle, but because he was the
means of bringing me into communication with the
Trevelyans, my dear and helpful friends of so many
years. Sir Walter and Lady Trevelyan were among
the admirers of Samuel Brown, and at his desire
she wrote the review that appeared in the Scotsman
newspaper of my Memoir of my brother David.
When my little book of poems {Poems by a Painter)
was published in 1854, I sent it to Sir Walter, at
Wallington Hall, a large modern mansion near
Morpeth which they preferred to Nettlecombe
Court, their lovely Elizabethan house in Somerset.
I received in reply a pressing invitation to visit
them.

It was a long drive at that time after alighting
from the railway at Morpeth. About midday, as I
approached the house, the door was opened, and
there stepped out a little woman as light as a feather
and as quick as a kitten, habited for gardening in a

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

broad straw hat and gauntlet gloves, with a basket
on her arm, visibly the mistress of the place. The
face was one that would be charming to some and
distasteful to others, and might in the same way-
be called rather plain or rather handsome, as the
observer was sympathetic or otherwise. In a very
few minutes the verdict would be understood and
confirmed by the lady, whose penetration made her
a little feared. This habit of looking well at a
stranger and concluding correctly about him has
always been fascinating to me, even when seasoned
with the mild satire generally associated with
penetration. Why not enliven life by that play,
innocent on the tongue of the amiable, mild in the
hands of a lady who knew reply was out of court,
and beneficial too from so trenchant an observer as
the possessor of the hazel eyes that saw through
one and made him careful to avoid affectation of any
complexion, such care being his only safety in the
interview ?

Lady Trevelyan said she was going to look at
her own garden, and asked whether I would accom-
pany her, or enter and make myself known to the
familiar of the family, Mr. Wooster, the only inmate
at that moment, Sir Walter having been called from
home at an hour's notice. I went with her and in
half an hour we were old friends ; she had asked
many questions, and received the directest and
truest answers. In each case she showed that she
liked my plain speech and recognised it to be
genuine and unconventional, and in her own way

I S//^ WALTER AND LADY TREVELYAN 5

felt grateful and pleased. Walking on from one
spot to another, she made me acquainted with
various picturesque features and little nooks she had
sketched, with the bulrushes and water-lilies. I
rowed her across one of the artificial ponds before
we returned and entered the house.

It was fortunate that I had Lady Trevelyan
these few days all to myself, Sir Walter being so
difficult to become acquainted with. Not that he
drew a line round himself as many do whose only
recommendation in the world lies in their beloneinsfs,
but he was a man of few words, and many un-
acknowledged peculiarities. Inheritor too of the
bluest blood, his name, spelt the same as now, being
in the Doomsday-book for the same Devonshire
property the family still possess, though a Whig by
descent and a philosophical leveller in some respects
by inclination, the inherited habits of thirty genera-
tions were not to be cast aside.

With all Lady Trevelyan's discrimination in art
matters and acquaintance with the works of old masters
and with living modern artists, she had not risen above
the Turner mania ; and the exponent of Turner, Mr.
Ruskin, I soon found, held an overpowering influence
over her. Many incidents had conduced to this. She
had taken his part before, and was now prepared
indignantly to stand by him again. At Oxford she
had been especially amused by some of the dons
confessing to her they had hoped better things of
him than his present course indicated, spending his
time writing about pictures !

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

Wallington House had been a quadrangle, but
the interior court, open to the sky, had been long
found productive of only damp and cold, and Dob-
son, the architect of so many able works in the North
of England, turned this blind space into a saloon by
opening the walls into arcades and covering the
whole by a coffered roof. Paved and surrounded
by hot-water pipes, the whole house was made com-
fortable and a place provided for pictures and
decoration, which I was to supply. When this was
determined on in the beginning of 1856 I drew out
a scheme, and Lady Trevelyan prevailed on me to
consult Mr. Ruskin, which I did with strong mis-
giving. I sent him a sketch of a compartment,
telling him at whose instance I had done so, wishing
him to think over the scheme and give us such
suggestions as might occur to him. His reply
was not very useful, but such as it was I may enter
it here. My design was that the lower pilasters
between the pictures should be filled by tall plants —
as foxglove, bulrush, corn of different kinds, and so
forth — painted on the stone, and the spandrels with
spreading foliage of native trees — oak, lime, elm,
and others, — the upper tier of pilasters to be only
panelled, and the spandrels decorated sparingly with
grotesques as they approached the ceiling, which
was rich in stuccoed Roman mouldings and pateras.
In a few days Lady Trevelyan, then [May 1856]
living at Tynemouth, enclosed his answer, saying,
" The enclosed came yesterday. Mr. Ruskin was
at Amiens when he wrote, on his way to Geneva.

MR. RUSK IN

He was quite knocked up, and is obliged to be
absolutely idle for some time. He says in his
letter to me that even if he were well he does not
think he could help us. He likes the plan very
much."

Dear Mr. Scott — I am quite voived to idleness for
a couple of months at least, and cannot think over
the plan you send. I am as much in a fix as you are
about interior decoration, but incline to the All Nature in
the present case, if but for an experiment. The worst of
nature is that when she is chipped or dirty she looks so
very uncomfortable, which Arabesque don't. Mind you
must make her uncommonly stiff. I shall most likely
come down and have a look when I come back in
October.

So get on that I may have plenty to find fault with,
for that, I believe, is all I can do. Help you I can't. —
But am always, truly yours, J. RUSKIN.

I did get on, beginning the series of pictures
with the " Building of the Wall of Hadrian " ; ^ and
in the autumn, visiting London, I willingly agreed
to go to him if he would let me, expecting much
pleasure, if not also advantage, from listening to the

1 [This seems to be a slip of memory. At least the first of the
series to be completed and exhibited was " St. Cuthbert on Fame
Island," which was exhibited in the rooms of the Literary Society at
Newcastle in November 1856. "The Building of the Roman Wall
was exhibited in July 1857, and the remaining six appeared at regular
intervals in the following order, " The Death of Bede," " Danes
descending on the Coast at Tynemouth," " The Spur in the Dish,"
"Bernard Gilpin," "Grace Darling," "Iron and Coal." The whole
series of eight pictures was exhibited at the French Gallery in Pall
Mall at the end of June 1861. References to the various pictures,
as in the course of composition, occur in the subsequent notes and
letters. — Ed.]

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

most eloquent writer and most enthusiastic hero-
worshipper of this or perhaps of any age. On
reaching town I found an invitation to dine at
Camberwell, the note saying that he " understood I
wished to gain some information about the teaching
pursued at the Working Man's College," which we
could visit afterwards. He knew I was attached to
the Department of Art ; indeed the note was ad-
dressed there. The Working Man's College re-
pudiated every point of the curriculum of the
Government system, and there was an impertinent
jealousy in the mind of every one of the teachers,
all volunteers as they were, carrying on the art
classes at that unendowed seminary. I felt it neces-
sary to answer that this was a mistake, at least in
any particular way ; that Lady Trevelyan wished
me to make his acquaintance ; but if he liked in a
friendly manner to receive me on that ground, I
should be very pleased to accept his invitation, and
to accompany him afterwards to Red Lion Square,
the evening in question being his evening there. I
mentioned this to Rossetti, who volunteered to go
with me self-invited.

These particulars and the others following are
of little value, but are necessary to make my future
relation to Mr. Ruskin understood ; he may never,
however, be mentioned in future pages. There are
natures sympathetic to each other, and there are
others antipathetic. I endeavoured to be very
modest, and tried to be agreeable, but it was of no
use. I had sent him my little volume of poems at

MR. RUSKIN

the lady's desire, and D. G. R. asked him what
he thought of the book ; he pretended to be surprised
it was mine. His late visit to Edinburgh led us to
talk of Scottish artists, when he mentioned David
Scott, some of whose works had been pointed out
to him. He thought they possessed some quality in
colour, but nothing else, though he believed the artist
had valued himself on quite other qualities ! " Scott's
brother, you mean," suggested D. G. R., whereat
he again simulated surprise. This was still followed
by some other supercilious pretence, and I could
bear him no longer, thought I would have a good-
humoured reprisal, and the conversation turning
soon, of course, on Turner, I said the evidence of
the personality and talk of a man was in the most
of cases conclusive as to the character of his works,
and I told Thomson of Duddingston's anecdote
of his " introdoocing a bit of sentiment" into the
view of the place where Harold Harefoot fell [see
vol. i. p. 84]. At this Gabriel laughed, and asked
him if Turner really talked in that way, and how
he got over that sort of thing. The poisonous
expression of his face was a study. His hero-
worship of Turner was not an affectation at all ;
but his overpowering passion in talk as in writing
was a determination to find out qualities no one
else could see, and to contradict or ignore those
evident to every one else.

We drove in to Red Lion Square, and here I
found drawing from copies as preliminary practice,
drawing from beautiful ornamental objects or human

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

figures — everything indeed to be seen in academic
or Government schools of art practice — ignored. I
remembered F. M. Brown's class in Camden Town,
where all the pupils were drawing from wood-shavings.
Instead of these, here every one was trying to put
on small pieces of paper imitations by pen and ink of
pieces of rough stick crusted with dry lichens ! He
drew my attention to the beauty of these as giving
the pupils a love of " nature" ! but I suppressed my
expression of dissent in the presence of the young
men. What astonished me was Rossetti's abetting
of such frightful waste of time, especially as I found
W^oolner, who had a modelling class, teaching the
human figure.

I came away feeling that such pretence of educa-
tion was in a high degree criminal ; it was intellectual
murder ; not one of the young men who attended
at the Working Man's College ever acquired any
power of drawing. The only one who could ever
be quoted was employed by Ruskin to copy Turner's
drawings, which he could do before he entered the
class ; he copied them by elaborate stippling, cover-
ing an inch or so in a day! I found Miss Siddal
was then in the South of France for her health,
Ruskin having persuaded her to go. His wealth
and entire carelessness about it enabled him to do
very kind things, and this was the cause of his
influence as much as his rhetorical genius. In a
letter a short time before, D. G. R. had told me
about his volunteering at the Working Man's College.
"You think I have turned humanitarian perhaps,

MR. R US KIN

but you should see my class for the model ! None
of your Freehand Drawing- Books used. The British
mind is brought to bear on the British mug at once,
and with results that would astonish you," This
was what any one would have expected from him,
the British vmg being interpreted living model !
and walking home I reminded him of this letter,
but I did not find him communicative or even ex-
planatory. I concluded he planted himself into the
party that evening just to see and hear what passed
when I was face to face with Ruskin and the class
drawing from bits of stick. He was my dearest
and, I may say, most attached friend, my admiration
in poetry and, to some degree, in art too ; but I
wished he could or would act and speak in a more
manly and ingenuous manner. Why could he not
have acknowledged Ruskin's liberality to Lizzie
Siddal, and yet objected to etching with a pen from
lichenous sticks !

Let me finish here with Mr. Ruskin. In 1861 I
think it was, after the last of my eight pictures was
placed, and instead of arabesques on spandrels of
the upper circle of arches in the hall, Sir Walter
had agreed to my painting eighteen scenes from
the ballad of CJievy Chase, Ruskin, who had not
been there since his eventful visit with his wife and
Millais, at last accomplished his visit to paint one of
the pilasters. Lady Trevelyan had kept for him
the great white lily, commonly called the Annuncia-
tion Lily, but the modesty of the professor would
not allow him to take that sacred flower. No ; he

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

would take the humblest — the nettle ! Ultimately
wheat, barley, and other corn, with the cockle and
other wild things of the harvest-field, were selected,
and he began, surrounded by admiring ladies. Miss
Stewart Mackenzie, then on the eve of her marriage
with Lord Ashburton, and others being guests at
the time. At dinner we heard a good deal about
the proficiency of the pupils at the Working Man's
College, and next morning he appeared with his
hands full of pen-and-ink minute etchings of single
ivy leaves the size of nature, one of which he en-
trusted to each lady as if they had been the most
precious things in the world. He took no notice of
me, the representative of the Government schools.
I could stand by no longer. He had been giving
lessons on drawing, had set Miss Mackenzie to
draw a table, prohibiting her to make a preliminary
general sketch, but directing her to begin at one
corner and finish as she went on ; this being next to
impossible, she had applied to me, but I had declined
to interfere. Now I could not remain silent, so I
gave them a little lecture on the orthodox method of
teaching and the proper objects to be used as models,
and in a very cool, confident way showed the sensible
women, as they all were, that spending so much
time niggling over a small fiat object with a pen was
teaching nothing, but ruining the student for any
application of art except that of retouching and
spoiling photograph card portraits. I asserted that
long practical knowledge made me certain of what I
said, and I appealed to him to tell us if he had ever

MR. RUSK IN

found any young man apply what he had thus
learned to any purpose whatever ? The revulsion
in the minds of my audience was visible at once ;
he grinned in contemptuous silence. The subject
was dropped.

CHAPTER II

FIRST APPEARANCE OF A. C. SWINBURNE AN AMUSING

EXPERIENCE WITH THOMAS CARLYLE DEATH OF

DR. SAMUEL BROWN.

By midsummer of the year after I received my com-
mission to paint the eight pictures at WalHngton/
I had got the two ladies, Lady Trevelyan and Miss
Capel Lofft, fully interested and occupied on the
decorative portions of the saloon work, and my first
picture was in its place. They worked under my
direction, so that I was very frequently in that
quarter, and very soon I began to recognise a little
fellow who used to pass my post-chaise on the road
descending from Cambo to Wallington. He was
always riding a little long-tailed pony at a good pace
towards the village. He had the appearance of a
boy, but for a certain mature expression on his
handsome high-bred face, which had bright, coarse
yellow hair flowing on his shoulders, and flashing
out round his head. On his saddle was strapped a
bundle of books like those of a schoolboy. He

1 [i.e. in 1857. — Ed.]

CHAP. II A. C. SWINBURNE 15

recognised me as quickly as I did him, and the con-
scious look he gave in passing raised my curiosity,
which was soon gratified by finding him one day
kissing his hand to Lady Trevelyan at the door of
the Hall, and by my learning that he was the grand-
son of a neighbouring baronet, Sir John Swinburne,
and was now spending his school recess at Capheaton,
his grandfather's house, whence he rode over to read
with the incumbent at Cambo.

Cambo was a very little village on the top of an
ascent of a mile from Wallington, with an inn ex-
hibiting a swinging signboard which gave it the
name of the Queens, as it showed on the south side
the head of Queen Elizabeth painted by Lady
Trevelyan, and on the other towards the north that
of jMary of Scots by Miss Capel Lofft. Many a
pedestrian and disciple of Isaac Walton knew this
sign, and remembered it as a deception and a snare ;
as no beverage but tea, coffee, and ginger-beer — the
best of things, but not to their liking — was to be
had within this temperance hostelry. This quietest
of villages had the smallest of churches, where Sir
Walter read the lessons from his own pew, and the
amiable clergyman, Algernon s tutor, went through
all the forms the same as if he had had an audience
of five hundred ; suffering, too, from a nervous
agitation when he mounted the pulpit that made
him catch his breath and hem between the sentences.
He used to dine every now and then at the great
house, where Lady Trevelyan, who took a motherly
care of Algernon, used to ask him how his pupil

i6 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

went on, receiving always the same answer, that he
was too clever and never would study.

Swinburne must have been at this time about
eio-hteen, but from his small fio^ure and from his
boyish style of manners, though he had been at a
public school for several years and was now about to
enter Balliol, he gave the impression, as said before,
of greater youth. This caused him to be so treated,
which treatment, again, made him affect to be
younger than he was. At this time, and long after
it, he could, so to speak, believe what he liked, or
rather, what the people he liked chose to expect to
be true. He had got a prize for French, which
made him childishly proud, and, indeed, made him
all his life delighted with that tongue— the most
unfortunate for poetry — a fact it was impossible for
him to admit. This was, I think, the only success
he made at school or college, which none of his
intimate friends could fathom, as he was able to
acquire without trouble, and had a memory enabling
him to recite long poems by once reading. When
he began to write poetry, which he was always fond
of reciting, he never needed to carry his manuscript
about with him !

A few days after my first meeting him he ap-
peared with the prize -book, entering the saloon
where we were all at work hopping on one foot, his
favourite expression of extreme delight. It was a
large edition of Notre Dame de Paj-is gorgeously
bound, with illustrations by Tony Johannot ; but the
exuberance of his delic^ht was so comical that even

A. C. SWINBURNE 17

Lady Trevelyan could not resist a smile, and Miss
Capel Lofft, a very nervous person, begged him to
sit down quietly and show her the prints. For my
part, not yet recognising in this unique youth the
greatest rhythmical genius of English poetry, I
looked on with wonder as at a spoilt child. The
whole forenoon that book was never out of his sip-ht.
If it lay on the table his eyes were always wandering
to it. The fascination of first love was nothing to
this fascination ; and when we all adjourned for an
interval to the garden, there it w^as tightly held
under his arm, while he ran on before backwards
and ran back to us again, and the sharpest of eyes
were fixed on him with their amused but maternal
expression.

Can it have been that this school prize-book, the
Notre Dame de Paris, made Victor Hugo his hero
for life .^ I do not mean to supfSfest that egotism
was the key to his feelings. Far from that ; he was
altogether free from that unamiable selfishness. And
much as he loved and admired his own advantages,
internal or external, it was in the frankest spirit
of admiring what was good ; his friends' excellent
qualities were equally loved and admired. He had
the greatest power of loving his friends, and bearing
with them. His enthusiasm was measureless.

From small beginnings great results arise. From
one step to another, his own natural temperament
impelling him, and these trifling incidents determin-
ing its direction, the Gallo-mania that has been the
motif in so much of his writing became a proclivity

VOL. II c

1 8 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

infecting all the young verse-writers and critics of
the day. The sound of Swinburne's verse, which is
in danger of becoming tedious by his unbounded
facility of repeating the same rhythm exactly, and
the Gallo-mania associated with it, have been the two
characteristics of this decade or lono^er. At this
moment [1S77] I know half a dozen ambitious and
innocent young men who talk of the literature of our
neighbours as if it were altogether delightful, and as
if they, each one of them, had discovered the fact, and
that Victor Hugo, too, was the greatest of possible
poets and mortals. Was it all because Algernon
Swinburne when a boy had Notre Dame de Paris
presented to him at school ?

In i860, when his first drama was published, I
painted a small portrait of him in oil. He used to
come in and live with us in Newcastle, and when I
was out or engaged he was to be seen lying before
the fire with a mass of books surrounding him like
the ruins of a fortification, all of which he had read,
and could quote or criticise correctly and acutely
many years after. This portrait used to arrest him
long afterwards, when he visited me, as if it was
new to him. He was delighted to find it had some
resemblance to what he called his portrait in the
National Gallery. This was the head of Galeazzo
Malatesta in the picture of the Battle of Sant' Egidio
by Uccello, which certainly was not merely the same
type, but was at this time exceedingly like him.

I soon began to look for him every time he had
written ballad or scene that pleased himself, and his

E-tciediyW.BS

II A. C. SIVINBUR^^E 19

advent had the charm of sunshine or champagne on
one with many burdens conscientiously borne, and
an extreme love of an idleness I could never
indulo^e. He was a creature above all the ills of
life or difficulties of art, emancipated from ordi-
nary annoyances. He was not like Rossetti, self-
tormented by the ambition to paint, which he could
not do to his own satisfaction till late in life ; nor
distracted by responsibilities like myself. His
pockets were always crammed with papers ; still
he recited quires of manuscripts without consult-
ing them. But his nervous excitable nature could
not stand strain : pain was nothing to him, yet
he would not bear the slightest inconvenience a
moment. One morning he had a toothache, and at
once determined to have the tooth out. He would
not stand it another minute ; off he would go to
the dentist, and I should accompany him. It was a
mighty grinder, and the operator exerting his whole
muscular force, lifted him from the seat without
extracting the tooth. I held his head, the grinder
broke ; Swinburne swore, not against the dentist,
but against the tooth, and had it out piecemeal
without complaining!

In future years, amidst the wear and tear of
poetical composition, when living in London — when
Oxford had been left behind, with its quiet habits
— we used to wonder how his amazing physical
powers stood the hard usage he gave himself. But
the stock he came from was a good one, and I
recollected how his grandfather, at the time of my

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

Wallington work, astonished the doctor. This
doctor, who used to ride past Walhngton, to and
from Capheaton, told us one morning that Sir John,
then more than ninety years of age, had ruptured
the tendon-Achilles, and could not put his foot to
the ground. Of course, the conclusion formed by
the surgeon was that the old gentleman would never
walk again, the restoration of the tendon at his
age not being thought possible. He would not,
however, keep his bed ; in a few weeks he was well
again !

I may here enter a very droll passage with the
gruffest and most ungenial of all mortals, though
one of the intellectual potentates of the age and of
all time, Thomas Carlyle. In the attempt to refresh
my memory about Swinburne, I find I have nearly
missed out my third adventure with that redoubtable
friend and fellow -Scotchman. Bound to him for
ever, as I have said, by his prompt notice of the
lying report circulated by the bookseller's canvasser,
I sent him my book of Poems by a Painter, as the
volume has been often called, from its having an
etched frontispiece with these words under it.
Critics are tired out by repetition of the same kind of
work, and, with a load of new books waiting for
their manipulation, they hurry over what does not at
the first instant arrest them ; my respected friend
Carlyle, though not a professional critic, was a hard-
worked and slowly industrious litterateur, and could
not find leisure to look at anything in my little
book, except the frontispiece, which, however, he

THOMAS CARLYLE

had not studied to good purpose. Like the Irish
editor who would not prejudice his mind by perus-
ing the book, he wrote me the following note, that
startled me not a little :

Chelsea, idth October 1S54.

Dear Sir — I have, with many thanks for your good-
ness to me, received your pretty little volume. Every-
where in it I find proof of your assiduity, your ingenuity,
— in short, of your talent for doing something much more
useful in the world than writing rhymes never so well.
If you will take any advice of mine in this matter (which
I hardly expect you will) then know that according to
my notion a man's speech is next to nothing in compari-
son to the man's deed ; what he can do and practically
perform, not at all what he can speak or sing, is the first
question we ask of every man ; to which I only add that
if the man has anything to say, he had better say it than
sing it, at this time of day.

Silence, with pious thought and strenuous practical
exertion superadded, will do much more for a man of
worth and parts than any speech can or could. You
may depend upon it I have nothing but goodwill towards
you, though I say these unwelcome things. — I am, yours
very truly, T. Carlyle.

This note, its manner as well as its meaning,
puzzled me more the longer I thought of it. I had
only been in his house once or perhaps twice, it is
true, but my circle was his circle, and in every way
I was favourably known to him. Besides, I had
some vague recollection of having seen or heard
the very same kind of sententious elocution before.
It seemed an echo of something written by him I
had seen in a newspaper. My first feeling soon
gave way to one of mirth at the absurdity of a man

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

whose doings had been very feeble indeed, only as
a parish schoolmaster at Kirkcaldy, and who had
subsided into endless objurgatory prose speech, but
for which neither I nor any other man above the
villaofe blacksmith in that lancr toivn would ever
have heard of him. I tried to be still on the friend-
liest terms with him, and in a fortnight wrote him
as follows, endeavouring, in fact, for an explanation:

Newcastle, wth November, 1S54.

Mv DEAR Sir — I am in receipt of your note on my
little book of Poems. I acknowledge a very considerable
influence possessed by your feelings and opinions written
or printed ; and therefore cannot help writing a word or
two in reply to your note of the other day.

Of all men in the world, I appear to myself precisely
the last whom it is necessary to remind that what a man
does is more important than what he says or sings.
Ever since boyhood I have had burdens fall to my share
that left me no possibility of doubting the superior
efficacy as well as the imperious necessity of ceaseless
activity and tangible work. The habit of doing has thus
become so natural to me that the smallest interval of
time is filled up by work — if not for others, then for
myself ; — thus I endeavoured to establish my brother's
claims by publishing his Memoir, and thus, too, I sent
you this little volume of Poems illustrated by myself
My habit of doing brings upon me your warning against
writing, i.e. idle talking and singing !

The oddest thing is that yours is the warning voice,
since maxims the most opposite are so frequently to be
found in your writings. You may (must ?) have for-
gotten the circumstance long ago, but I once had the
temerity to write you regretting the absence of a Hero of
Work, an Art- Hero, from your book of hero-worship.
Curious it is, and a little funny, to find myself replying
to your late note as I do now.

THOMAS CARLYLE

But, after all, the thing I most want to say is, that
my book of Poems is something done, not merely said or
sung, but for the most part experienced, and in some
part felt to the marrow of my life. If it were merely
good singing, it would meet approval from a greater
number than it is likely to do as it is.

My dear Mr. Carlyle, with much respect, )-ours,

W. B. S.

In a few days the mystery was solved : I received
the following :

Chelsea, \6th November 1S54.

My dear Sir — It is too certain I have committed
an absurd mistake, which indeed I discerned two weeks
ago with an emotion compounded of astonishment,
remorse, and the tendency to laugh and cry both at
once ! The truth is I am pestered with incipient volumes
of verses from young lads that feel something stirring in
them ; on the frontispiece of your little volume, I read
Printer (not Painter, as I should have done), nor did j-our
written note, in the hurry I was in, recall to me your
identity ; fancying, therefore, it was an ingenious printer
lad in your coaly town, who was rashly devoting his
extra gifts, evidently rather valuable ones, to the trade of
verse-making, I wrote and admonished (hastily reading
five or six stanzas here and there), in the singular manner
you experienced ! Never was a more distracted q2ii pro
quo. On discovering that Printer was Painter, and hear-
ing that you had published a volume of Poems, I at once
found my " Idle Apprentice " converted into a grave,
earnest man, of mature mastership, with a beard almost
as gray as my own, whose surprise at my reception of
him it was at once ludicrous and horrible to picture to
myself! This is the naked truth; and I hope you will
find in it an explanation of everyhing.

For the rest, I must say, you take the affair, even in
its unexplained shape, in a spirit which I must call
chivalrous, and in every way humane and noble, for
which accept praises and thanks from mc, very cordial

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

indeed. I need not add that verses of your writing,
were they only the sport of well-earned leisure, come
under a very different rubrick from verses by my sup-
posed young gentleman playing truant ; and are likely to
be much more deliberately read and judged of in this
place ; and that my doctrine about work and speech was,
and continues to be, so far as I can perceive, precisely
your own.

On the whole, I will ask you to come and see me
again, if you can spare half an hour ,(3 to 4 P.M.), while in
London ; to consider me reading your new Poems (as my
purpose was) the first spare evening I have ; and always,
as remembering with pleasure and respect the friendly
man, recognisable as an earnest fellow-labourer in the
vineyard, whom I once saw here. — You may believe me,
yours very sincerely, T. Carlyle.

I had signed myself "with much respect " his,
as the right thing to do, writing as I did, but, after
all, I did not feel my respect quite so great now
that the explanation had come. He had a stereo-
typed form of discouragement for the young, even
although the idle apprentice could do what he now
professed to respect, finding it the work of a middle-
aged friend ! I did go to see him again, and in the
course of conversation he told us over again the
same story he had told me before, and in the exact
same words ! The story was of his visit to the field
of the Battle of Dunbar, in an autumn afternoon,
and seeing Irish reapers resting all along the road
after their long, weary journey. Like the tenor of
my letter, this story was evidently prepared as a
show-piece of descriptive elocution ! Alas ! yet it
had become so perhaps only after the publication

SAMUEL BROWN

of the Croniiuell. Whether or not, I cannot open
any of his greater works without thinking of him as
one of the greatest men of the time.

Let me take up here and enter, for the last time,
perhaps, in these desultory pages, the name of a
dear friend who remains in my mind associated
with Carlyle, and still more with my brother, and
others belonging to a cycle now closed and shut
away by the door of death —

The door of gold
That mortal eyes can not behold.

Samuel Brown ought certainly to have left an hon-
ourable name in various walks. He perceived the
underlying truth in scientific things by the supreme
intuition of the discoverer, while the way to show it
to others he had still to find. His instincts were
sure, while his experimentalism did not always
answer. I remember his venturing on the now very
generally accepted idea that colour would be found
to be one, not three components, blue and yellow
being light and darkness, leaving red as the inherent
appearance of physical things. This as far as I
understood him at the time, but then came the
difficulties of experiment, which was necessary —
" Triumphant Analysis," of which he was so fond of
talking, having reached its limit. But the social in-
fluence he possessed, by means of his specific learning
and wonderful power of ready speech, has left a
deeper impression and a more charming recollection
of his personality than his chemical discovery, or

26 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

supposed discovery, relating to the atomic theory,
his essays, admirable as they were, or his drama,
Galileo Galilei , which is about as good as Carl von
Gebler's later celebration of the same hero. He
might have made any reasonable success as a
physician, I venture to think ; but he, like my
brother, would have no medium success ; their
triumphs were to be in the highest walk, and both
failed — not for want of genius, but for want of
talent.

His cousin, John Brown, who has left a more
lasting name, but whom I had ' only met in an
accidental way, wrote me that Samuel was going
down very fast. My last sight of him was at his
native place, Haddington, still brimful of specula-
tion on his favourite topics, though furnace and
crucible had quitted his hand. I have none of his
letters to embellish my narrative withal, as they were
gathered in by his wife, with a view to publication,
after he was gone ; but I may preserve one from the
author of Rab and his Friends, written a few days
after his death :

My dear Scott — Let me thank you most cordially
for your note. I knew it would go to your heart, for i&\\
men loved him as you did, and as he knew you did. I
could not write anything. I tried and broke down. I
send the Scotsman, which is by his unfailing nurse, J. C. B.
The N'ezvs is, I think, by Professor Nichol. It is all so
sad, so pathetic ; such a mournful eclipse of so much
brightness and power ; the sun going down while it is yet
day, the tree withering in its spring leaves ; and without
one word of complaint from him. He appeared before
the time was ripe, and has paid the forfeit. Do you re-

II DR. JOHN BROIVN 27

member old Grotius's epitaph on the Schoolmaster ? The
idea is from the tenses of the verb —

Prcesens

Imperfectum

Perfectum

Plus quam perfectum

FUTURUM.

Always glad to hear from you for your own sake, as well
as for your brother's and Samuel's. — Yours,

J. Brown.

September 1856.

CHAPTER III

RESUME OF LETTERS FROM FRIENDS IN LONDON,
1856-58 ADDITIONS TO THE CIRCLE THERE

I MUST now return to my London circle of friends,
as I may properly call the new school of painters,
and other men with whom they were associated.
For some time after attaching myself to the "School
of Design," on visiting London I kept up some
association with my former friends by visiting them,
especially Frith, O'Neil, and Egg. But I found the
game was not worth the candle ; all these had found
entrance into the Academy, and that made a differ-
ence to them — similar, in a way, to the change which
takes place on the ordinary young woman when she
gets married, has a house of her own, and has little
more to expect in life. I wholly dissented from
Frith's treatment of Pope in his picture of Lady
Wortley Montague laughing at him in contemptuous
fashion, however well painted it might be. I could
not tell him I thought it represented the characters
of the poet and the lady from the point of view of
the cad, but I thought so. Egg was a valuable man
in a way, but without power of any kind whatever.

WOOLNER 29

Other old friends were gone out of town, or dead, as
Poole, Meadows, or Patric Park, sculptor.

To explain the mutual relation and activities of
my newer friends I must recur to their letters, as far
as they have been preserved. Taken year by year
they may be amusing.

From Woolner in May 1855. He says there is
very little artistic news : growlings, of course, at the
Academy Committee. They hung Millais — even
Millais their crack student — in a bad place, he being
too attractive now ; but that celebrity made such an
uproar the old fellows were glad to give in and place
him better. Millais' amusement when Woolner wrote
was to go about and rehearse the scene that took
place at the Academy between him and the ancient
magnates, especially the horse - painter, Abraham
Cooper. Hunt had not yet returned from Jerusalem,
nor did Woolner know when he would return.

Tennyson is publishing some new poems, most lovely
things : I think them the best he has done. I hope you
have heard of the new illustrated edition of his works, to
appear with all our set in it, if Rossetti can be got to work.
There is to be an engraving of my medallion of the royal
Alfred for frontispiece. I have made a new one of him,
much better than the last ; also a new Carlyle, better than
the old one. Carlyle is extremely pleased with it, and
says it is the best likeness of him that has ever been done.
That brute beast, the public, begins to think there is a
glimmering of sense in the much -ridiculed Latter -Day
Pamphlets. The stone which the builders rejected, etc. ;
but every one must bide his time. Concerning Went-
worth's statue, which brought mc home, it has turned out
a failure. Wentworth has resolved on founding a fellow-
ship at the Sydney University with the mone}- instead.

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

This is at least fifteen hundred out of my pocket, coming
back to England when I did.

"It was the only chance I ever had of making
any money," Woohier says in the despairing way
of young fellows, and ends with the reflection :
" Throwing up a certainty for promises which prove
false does not sweeten one's temper."

From Alexander Munro, a little while later
[October 1855].-

I have delayed writing till after my return from Paris,
where I have been to see the Great Exhibition with
D. G. R. I got home on Tuesday, but Rossetti only
returned to-day. We enjoyed Paris immensely, in different
ways of course, for Rossetti was every day with his sweet-
heart [E. S.], of whom he is more foolishly fond than I
ever saw lover. Great affection is ever so to the mere
looker-on, I suppose. Well ! well ! Hamon's pictures
are indeed lovely, but Decamps is the great fellow ; Ingres
is often stupid, and Delacroix's drawing often bad. The
grand sight was the Emperor and his court blazing in gold
and colour at the distribution of medals ; the Empress
looking more lovely than ever, her head and neck very
gracefully bending like a bell-flower. Old Horace Verney
was there, resplendent in decorations from every country
but ours. I spent one delightful evening with the Brown-
ings, who are living in Paris ; the Trevelyans I did not
meet, although they were there.

William Rossetti writes [June 1855] in a long
letter difficult to epitomise. I had asked him about
Woolner in my last, so he also gives me the account
of the Wentworth statue having gone among the
" were to be."

Ill NEWS-LETTERS FROM THE ROSSETTIS 31

Poor old sturdy Woolner is done again ; he thinks of
returning to Australia, where he was going on swimmingly,
staying a year or two, then finally back to England.
Allingham's little volume, such as it is, is about ready, illus-
trated by Hughes with woodcuts, also by Millais and
Gabriel. Hunt, when he wrote last, was to leave Jeru-
salem shortly, and to be at Constantinople before now. I
have a long-pending engagement to meet him at some
point on the Continent on his way home. He has not
had any picture ready to send over from the East for the
Exhibition, but a life-size crayon of his father, admirably
finished, has been rejected ; they wanted to do the same
for Millais, but did not dare. Are you aware he [Millais]
is now at Perth, whither he started last Monday, to be
married (to-morrow I think). Such is the scene at present
on the stage of that curious and mournful tragi-comedy.
Ruskin himself, for whom almost exclusively Gabriel is now
engaged painting, has been very unwell of late, poor
fellow, and is staying at Tunbridge, but he will be back
to town on Thursday. I have met him repeatedly, and
know few men I like better.

This is very pretty of William. He was the
most amiable and generous of friends and .brothers.
Here is something from Gabriel on the same matters,
and to the same effect. I wish I could transcribe it
all, ending as it does with a sonnet.

I see your book in Mudie's last list [he says], together
with The Angel in the House, whose gifted author's face
must afford a fine rainbow study, since that vile stuff in
the AtJiencEiun. [This was an amusing review in verse,
exactly like that of the poem reviewed, but printed as
prose.] However, his book, it seems, is selling at a hundred
a month. I remember you asked me how I liked it. Oh,
it's done to a nicety, really well and extra well. But I
know I need not read it again, although the author is

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

asking his friends all round to do so, and marginise on it
suggestions for the new edition. But the book is a first-
rate one in its way. Allingham is shortly to be out with
a new or a demi-semi-new volume, for which I have not
yet ceased to be astounded at having drawn an illustration
on wood in a moment of enthusiasm, but if it is not well
cut it shall be cut out. I have been asked by Moxon to
do some for the Tennyson, and said I would, but don't
know whether I shall, as all the most practicable subjects
have been given away already — my own fault, however,
as I had been asked to choose long ago. Millais — but
perhaps you have heard variously about him ! In painting
he is hard at work apotheosising the fire-brigade [painting
his picture of the children saved from a house on fire].
Hannay — did you see his Satire and Satirists ? a real
book, the best he has done — is going to publish Nettlc-
Floiucrs, a Collection of Epigrams, etc., and means to
contract for a few cudgellings in a mild way, as advertise-
ment. Here is a rough recollection of one :

Priapus Higg loquitur.

"With fraud the church, the law, the camp are rife,
Nothing but wickedness ! O weary life !
I must console me with my neighbour's wife.

W. M. R. again, dated December 1856. He
sends " many thanks for the Leaves of Grass, which
I have not yet received from Woohier, but shall
be eager to read as soon as I get it. Woolner and
others denounce the book in the savagest of terms ;
but I suspect I shall find a great deal to like, a great
deal to be surprised and amused at, and not a little
to approve, — all mingled of course with a lot of
worse than worthless eccentricity." Soon after he
adds, "The Leaves of Grass has come to hand.

Ill NEWS-LETTERS FROM THE ROSSETT/S 35

My best expectations are more than confirmed by
what Httle I have read as yet ; and Gabriel, who
has had nothing but abuse for it hitherto, tends even
towards enthusiasm. You could not have given me
anything I should better like to receive." This was
the introduction of Walt Whitman's work to the
English literary world. A travelling bookseller,
who had been in America, and been all through the
war with Whitman, had brought over a number of
copies of the first edition, an eccentric man of
republican principles and very hard-up. In America
the book being ignored by all booksellers, who
declined at first even to lay it on their counters, he
had got a quantity of copies and was now trying to
sell them at Sunderland by Dutch auction. Thomas
Dixon, my constant friend, a perceptive man and a
public-spirited, though then only a working cork-
cutter, sent the book to me as a curiosity. Instantly
I perceived the advent of a new poet, a new Ameri-
canism, and a new teacher, and I invested in several
copies. The one I sent to W. M. R. was the cause
of his editine the EnMish edition, which raised
Whitman into a celebrity.

At that moment I had induced Woolner to
visit Sir Walter Trevelyan with me, which was a
fortunate circumstance in his professional career, as
he carried away a commission for a marble group
to occupy the centre of the hall, and this was the
beginning of his great success. W. M. R. goes on
to speak of this group, which was to carry out.
express, or typify in some manner, the result

VOL. II D

34 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

of all the history I was- then painting round the
walls.

What is Woolner's " centre sculpture for the Hall " at
Wallington to be, do you know ? I asked him about it
just after receiving your note, and he did not seem to
have any distinct idea of either the subject or the extent
of the commission. I hope it will be a good one, and
that he will make a good thing of it, for really it is
beginning to be high time he should take up his proper
position. Of Lady Trevelyan I saw but little when I
met her at Mrs. Loudon's, but she seems particularly
frank, unaffected, and good-humouredly willing to be
pleased. I had more conversation with Sir Walter — a
fine-minded man, of both natural and acquired dignity.
He would do well for Don Quixote — not the Don of the
caricaturist, however. Both spoke most lovingly of you
[which gave me great pleasure]. Aurora Leigh [just
published] was sent to Gabriel, and also to Woolner, by
Mrs. Browning herself, and both are unboundedly enthusi-
astic about it. I have read as yet something less than
two books of it, stuffed and loaded with poetic beauty
and passionate sympathy and insight. It is certainly
better than only a succession of fine things, though, even
to take the book from that point of view, it would be quite
a wonderful thing of the kind. I confess, however, I stand
somewhat taken aback at the prospect of the 14,000 lines
of blank verse, introspection, and humanitarian romance,
and I would not venture to name any early day for coming
to the end of it. I have alluded to Thomas Seddon's
death [Hunt's friend who died in the East]. You have
probably met him among our set in London, though I am
not certain. He was doing good service in the application
of the Pre-Raphaelite principle to landscape of historic
interest, such as Jerusalem, Egypt, etc., and in a year or
more would have made a very decided position. His
sudden death from dysentery at Cairo at the age of thirty-
five is very melancholy, both for his own family and for

Ill NEWS-LETTERS FROM THE ROSSETTIS 35

the wife he had married only a year and a half ago.
Hunt, like the fine fellow he is, was the first to suggest
that some public recognition and substantial fruit of his
exertions might be attained by exhibiting the works he
has left. I am just setting off to a meeting at Brown's
where four or five of us are to talk the matter over. [The
result was a subscription which purchased and presented
to the National Gallery the picture of Jerusalem.]

Now for a rapid dash at our news. Hunt is painting
at his " Christ and the Doctors in the Temple," having
established himself for the present in the Crystal Palace for
some use that he can turn the Alhambra Court to for the
background. Gabriel has done four of his Tennyson
designs, and is preparing with some seriousness to paint
an altar-piece for Llandaff Cathedral — subject, the Nativity.
Millais is still at Perth. Woolner, well on with his Tenny-
son bust in marble. Arthur Hughes, with sufficiency of
commissions and also a baby. Hannay is writing for the
Quarterly. The Brownings are back to Florence ; their
presence in London was most delightful to all of our set
who know them. Brown, who has not yet begun his
picture of " Work," has done a small oil portrait of me,
capital in painting and likeness, which he has presented
to my mother.

Gabriel follows a month later or so (February
1857) from 14 Chatham Place, where he remained
so long :

I have been meaning to write you ever since Brown
showed me the photograph from your noble picture of
" St. Cuthbert." I had not, in the state of sleepy worry
in which one lives here, woke up to the consciousness that
such things were being done, and it came to me as a
most delightful surprise. I shall hope some day to see
the original. I suppose it is the only picture existing as
yet of so definitely " historical " a class, in which the
surroundings are all real studies from nature ; a great

36 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

thing to have done. The sky and sea are sky and sea,
and the ancient boats are all real as if }'ou had got such
things to sit to you. The whole scene too, and the quiet
way in which the incident is occurring, at once strike the
spectator with the immense advantage of simple truth in
historical art over the " monumental " style. The figures
all seem very fine, although their lower limbs are out of
focus in the photograph. The only one which at all fails
to satisfy me is the priest in the centre ; but perhaps you
are right in curtailing him of much individuality. [This
figure represents Bishop Theodore, an Oriental from Smyrna,
whom I had consequently made very dusky in complexion.
He accompanied the young King of Northumbria to the
island of Cuthbert's hermitage, having celebrated mass
before embarking. I represented him apparelled for the
celebration to give contrast to the hermit's wrapper.
This may be considered by some a sacrifice to pictorial
convention ; if so, it is the only one in the picture, or, as
far as I know, in any of the series of pictures.] A suc-
cession of works such as this cannot fail to establish your
reputation. I hear you are now at work on the " Building
of the Roman Wall." One of the future subjects, " Barnard
Gilpin taking down the Gauntlet," should inspire you ; it
will be a glorious opportunity for a stirring work. I
have done a few water-colours in my small way lately, and
designed five blocks for Tennyson, some of which are
still cutting and maiming. It is a thankless task. After
a fortnight's work my block goes to the engraver, like
Agag, delicately, and is hewn to pieces before the — Lord
Harry !

Address to the D l Brothers

O woodman, spare that block,
O gash not anyhow ;
It took ten days by clock,
I'd fain protect it now.

Chorus, wild laughter from Dalziel's workshop.

Your friend W. J. Linton did two for me. [I am
delighted to quote his good ojDinion.] I am convinced he

Ill NEWS-LETTERS FROM D. G. ROSSETTI ^7

is a long way the best engraver living, now that old
Thomson is nearly out of the field. But unluckily the
two that went to Linton were just the least elaborate.
All the most careful ones have gone to Dalziel, and have
fared but miserably, though I am sure the greatest pains
have been bestowed upon them. Yesterday I made
Linton's acquaintance, as he came to town on business ;
he seems a most agreeable fellow.

Two young men, projectors of the Oxford and
Cambridge Alagazine, have recently come to town also
from Oxford, and are now very intimate friends of mine.
Their names are Morris and Jones. They have turned
artists instead of taking up any other career to which the
University generally leads, and both are men of real
genius. Jones's designs are marvels of finish and imagina-
tive detail, unequalled by anything unless perhaps Albert
Durer's finest works ; and Morris, though without practice
as yet, has no less power, I fancy. [Such is D. G. R.'s
first impression of the two close friends and men of
original genius. Besides, he goes on to say] : He [Morris]
has written some really wonderful poetry too, and as I
happen to have a song of his in my pocket I enclose it to
you. [This song has been lost, or possibly returned ; I
cannot find it, or remember what it was.]

Gabriel writes again in March 1857, sending me
three numbers of the Oxford and Cambridge Maga-
zine containing three poems of his. Regarding one
of these he wants to protest that it appears in the
same number with a praise of one of his pictures,
quite innocently on his part :

The praise was written by my most kind friend Vernon
Lushington [whose name I now heard for the first time]
before I knew of his intention, and I never saw it till
ready for press. The poem had been some time in the
editor's hands, and got put in unluckily just then. Non
mca culpa.

38 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

He says again :

I hope some day to see your pictures ; but also think
there ought to be some steps taken, if possible, to show
them in London when several are completed.^ Could not
they be fixed only temporarily in the Hall at present ? I
shall not forget to keep photographs of m)' blocks for
Tennyson for you. Besides these three I have done two
more, which W. J. Linton has cut well, and of which,
therefore, I need not regret having no photograph. I
have forwarded your " Seddon " subscription to William.
About the new art paper, it is to be feared it will not
come to anything : Ruskin bites not. You asked about
the capitals (botanical) for the Oxford Museum. I have
not undertaken any, but promised some time ago to
design the sculpture in the arched doorway to the street
— how call you it ? — but have not, however, heard from
Woodward [the architect of the museum] ver}' lately.
He is, as }'ou surmise, well worth knowing, but is the
stillest creature out of an oyster-shell.

Woodward had appeared as a guest at WalHng-
ton, and also Dr. Acland, and I had designed the
first of the capitals of pillars which were to form a
series all round the museum supporting the gallery,
and were expected, by combining four or six plants
on each cap in a Gothic manner, to represent all the
botanical classes. That year, on visiting Oxford, I
found some of these cut by the O'Sheas, very good
indeed ; but those expert stone-carvers disliked copy-
ing drawings — could only, in fact, improvise with a
vague resemblance to the copy.

Again in June 1857 Rossetti writes me, mainly
on my new picture of the " Building of Hadrian's

1 [The pictures were ultimately exhibited, when the series of
eight was completed, at the French Gallery in June 1861. — Ed.]

WILLIAM MORRIS 39

Wall" and about a small semi-private exhibition
opened by the set or coterie — we may as well call a
spade a spade — in Fitzroy Place, accessible by free
tickets, which exhibition was a forerunner of the
Hogarth Club, constituted a year after. I will not,
however, indulge myself again in transcribing his
praises. Here are his tidings about the two friends
from Oxford :

Morris has as }-et done nothing in art, but is now
busily painting his first picture, " Sir Tristram after his
Illness in the Garden of King Mark's Palace, recognised
by the Dog he had given to Iseult," from the Morte d'ArtJnir.
It is being done all from nature of course, and I believe
will turn out capitally. His chum Jones, who is by far
the most advanced of the two, is getting commissions
fast, and has done some wonderful cartoons in colour for
stained glass, which would delight the soul of you. He
has an order for an oil picture from Mr. Plint of Leeds,
and has done me the honour of choosing for subject
my "Blessed Damozel," which he is to illustrate in two com-
partments. I have no doubt it will be in our next year's
exhibition. I hope you will send us one of }'our pictures,
but I have as }'et no idea of their size. [This picture
was never done, Mr. Plint having died.]

Thus my circle of friends was being gradually
enriched by those I met, Swinburne and others,
under the friendly wing of Lady Trevelyan ; and
these notices in London letters were the first inti-
mations of the advent of two youths who were both
destined to fill an important place in the intellectual
history of our time. They w^ere undergraduates
together at Oxford at the time D. G. R.'s poetry
brought them to him in connection with the Magazine,

40 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

in which they were both actively concerned — Burne-
Jones feebly, however, and William Morris enthusi-
astically, as he contributed many wonderful tales
and some poems. They were then fast friends, and
they have remained so ever since. The powers of
the two men were, however, very distinct, although
at this their starting-point they were both equally
bent on becoming artists. Morris's first step in
this direction was to article himself to George
Edmund Street, then located in the University
town as architect to the diocese. He paid his
premium, and soon tiring of the regular office work,
left it off, and they both, as we have seen, appeared
in London. Morris w^as entirely his own master,
but E. B. J.'s course of action was not so free, as
he had a father living, and it was only by the
mediation and warm assurance of Rossetti as to his
son's extraordinary talent that the paternal bias to
the Church for his son's career gave way ; D. G. R.
told me. Perhaps the best of Morris's tales in the
Oxford and CambiHdge Magazine were *' Gertha's
Lovers" and the "Hollow Land," but all of his
contributions were unmistakable in imao^inative
beauty, and will some day be republished.

At this time the Union debating club-house and
library was just finished building. Those interested
in it. Dr. Acland, Mr. Woodward, the architect, and
others, accepted the offer on the part of Rossetti —
I think it must have been mainly in his hand, as he
asked me to join in the work — to surround the
gallery of the great room with life-size subjects

WILLIAM MORRIS 41

from the romance of the Round Table. Both of
these youths went into the scheme ; Arthur Hughes
also, and a youth whose name has not yet adorned
these pages, Valentine Prinsep. The work was
voluntary ; the remuneration was to be the honour ;
the expenses of living there while the work was
going on and the bills for colours being defrayed by
the Union. I did not avail myself of the invitation
to join the party, as I had fortunately other occupa-
tion. But will it be believed, not one of the band
from first to last knew anything whatever of wall-
painting and its requirements ! It was simply the
most unmitigated fiasco that ever was made by a
parcel of men of genius. The " great work " Gabriel
as we see holds out hopes of Morris accomplishing,
that begun by Rossetti himself, and the one next it
by Valentine Prinsep all went rapidly on, but only
apparently, as they were painted in water-colours on
the irregular brick wall merely whitewashed ! The
wall being a common brick wall meant to be primed
with plaster, one might have expected even the
architect Woodward would have expostulated. He
did not : the edges of all the bricks caught the dust ;
and as no adhesive medium, so far as I could dis-
cover, was used, the powder colours rubbed off the
flat surfaces. When I saw them only a few months
after they were executed,^ they were beginning to be

1 [In an old pocket-book containing entries about this visit to
Oxford, which seems to have been in June 1858, I find a note of
Mr. Scott's impressions of the Union paintings, which is worth
transcribing. — Ed.]

" The paintings by the new-school artists in the Union are very

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

unintelligible. By this time they must have largely
disappeared. Still the remains are curiously inter-
esting, and ought to be preserved.

What gave Morris his proper position was the
publication in the following year (185S) of the
Defence of Giienevcvc. This book was and is the
most notable first volume of any poet ; many of the
poems represent the mediaeval spirit in a new way,
not by a sentimental nineteenth - century- revival
mediaevalism, but they give a poetical sense of a
barbaric age strongly and sharply real. Woolner
wrote to me at the time of publication, " I believe
they are exciting a good deal of attention among
the intelligent on the outlook for something new."
Nevertheless, like Swinburne's first volume, the book
was still-born. The considerable body of perfectly-
informed but unsympathetic professional critics are,
strange to say, so useless as directors of public taste
that they have never yet lifted the right man into

interesting. They are poems more than pictures — being large
illuminations and treated in a mediceval manner, not studied from
nature nor endeavouring to represent nature indeed — at least not
restricting the means of suggestion by the limitation of correct
imitation. The drawing is such as men who have scarcely practised
at all can do without the model before them, and the colour is all
positive, like mediaeval work, the execution stippling like a miniature.
The conception of the whole artistically, the method of working, and
the character of colour and design are undoubtedly all due to
Rossetti ; indeed the work is properly his work, Morris also showing
in the roof the originality one might expect from his character as a
poet. This is shown in Rossetti's picture being so much more
perfect than the rest. In it the stippling is admirably expressive of
the detail, but in all the others it means nothing. However, this
stippling with a little brush is simply the result of his habit of paint-
ing nothing but little water-colours. The invention in his picture
and in some of the others is most lyrical and delightful.''

D. G. ROSSETTI

43

his right place at once. After repeated volumes had
attracted public favour, both of these little volumes
were reprinted ; the original impression having been
returned to the paper-mill, this destination being the
successor to "the trunkmaker" of old times.

I have quoted one of Rossetti's letters expressing
great praise of one of my Wallington pictures. I
might have quoted many more. The admiration
for the scenic treatment and the accessories in the
"St. Cuthbert" picture, for the sea and the sky, the
birds, and other matters, which he repeats with
still increasing emphasis of other following pictures,
suggests a few^ remarks. I have always believed
the best unofficial education for an artist is daily
sketching, keeping a pocket sketch-book as Thomas
Sibson, a friend too soon lost, as already noticed,
was in the habit of doino^. If he in this wav records
every characteristic action, every beautiful feature or
form he observes, not only in the accidents of society
or active human life, but also in vegetation or among
the lower animals, he will be real and natural in
expressing whatever he invents. " All painted from
nature" is very excellent, as Rossetti says Morris is
doing at the Union ; this, however, meant merely
that he got sunflow^ers into the gallery, but as he
could not or-et Tristram alono- w^ith them the sun-
flowers were so obtrusive he only showed Tristram's
head over them ! The best professional education
for a painter is perhaps scene -painting, but for
designing, thinking pictorially, the vital habit
necessary is observing and recording, however

44 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

slightly and transiently, the multitudinous aspects of
life.

The absence of this habit made Holman Hunt,
the most conscientious of men and the most realistic
of painters, a slave to the circumstances under which
he worked ; and D. G. R., poet and imaginative
inventor, who never made a memorandum of any
thing in the world except from the female face
between sixteen and twenty-six, was torn to pieces
by the waste of energy and excruciating difficulty
entailed by the getting of his picture backgrounds
reasonably right. I shall not say true to life or
nature — that he never considered ; but he would
unwittingly make the wall of a house only two inches
thick, or its perspective entirely wrong. In the
water-colour picture I got Lady Trevelyan to com-
mission, "The Virgin in the House of St. John,"
he had to introduce a distaff; after spending weeks
in looking for one he drew one "out of his head,"
and made the lint drawn from the top of the mass
looking somewhat like a smoking chimney in the
painting. True Italian as he was, he never went
home even as tourist, where he could have seen the
old women about Rome still using the distaff; he
cared for nothing, in short, but what he invented.
Had he gone he would never have sketched the old
women with distaffs. He would have come back as
ignorant as he went pictorially, but wiser in every
other respect. I prevailed on him to alter the
fallacy, but even after explanation he could not
make it rio^ht. In the little vio^nette for his sister's

D. G. ROSSETTI 45

Princes Progress he made an open window looking
on a garden in which was a labyrinth ; this he
actually represented as the plan, not the picture, of
a labyrinth ! I knew at once he had taken it from
the plan of the labyrinth at Hampton Court given
in the sixpenny guide to that locality. He would
rather buy the book, and not trouble to ofo into the
maze itself!

He has all his life been occupied and absorbed
in his own conceptions of art or of poetry. But we
cannot live by bread alone ; life is multiform, and
art for art's sake is a narrow field. Without the
faculty of observation the ideal becomes simply the
unreal. Jones is a painter by nature ; the aspect is
everything to him, the reality little. Rossetti is a
poet, and feels the core of the matter to be all-
important ; but his powers of observation of the
actual world are nearly nil. I mention these defects
in the accessories of his pictures as an argument for
the value of sketching from nature ; they were
infinitely insignificant compared with the richness
of invention, purity of feeling, and loveliness of the
figures represented in the works of each of these
men.

CHAPTER IV

RESUME OF LETTERS FROM FRIENDS, 1S59-60-61

THE ROSSETTIS, HOLMAN HUNT, WOOLNER, MUNRO,
ETC. LADY TREVELYAN MISS BOYD.

I HAVE now arrived at a period when painting
occupied all my days and nights too, though I still
conducted the School of Art. I shall therefore
have little to say about myself, and shall again fall
back upon letters, such as were annually saved from
the waste-basket of the year at Christmas. Not
any. of these letters were other than friendly and
accidental, but as they relate mainly to passing
events, their want of elaboration is no defect, and
no confidences are violated by what I shall extract.

Sometimes a sketch or a verse, even satirical or
caricature in a good-humoured way, recalls more
vividly still the impression of the passing moment.
Louis Napoleon, or, as Swinburne called him, "the
Beauharnais," was now in his glory ; Victor Hugo,
and others dear to all of us, were refugees. Swin-
burne, always possessed by some pet subject of
hatred or admiration, was carried away by un-
governable fury at the success of the wretched

THE HOGARTH CLUB 47

adventurer, or weak-minded innocent, now settled
in the Tuileries, and practised his ingenuity in in-
venting tirades against him, sometimes full of humour
and splendour, at other times grossly absurd. Lady
Trevelyan, always ready to enter into his mood, used
to assist him ; but learning he was going to accom-
pany his family to France, she predicted that he
would be caught by the police, and sketched the fate
that awaited him. The figure of A. C. S. addressing
the people was wonderfully good.

I. The first letter I find is from my best friend
and letter- writer of that day (ist March 185S),
W. M. R., relating to the formation of the Hogarth
Club, of which I have spoken before. All the names
on the list of the proposed Portfolio Club and many
more were enrolled, the only important one not among
them being that of Millais, who could not join a
body including Ruskin. The only non-artistic
members I remember meeting were Vernon Lush-
ington and his brother Godfrey, sincere and intelli-
gent lovers of art and its professors ; and in many
ways Vernon was and is one of the most admirable
of men — I knew little of Godfrey. This club ought to
have been still in existence, and under able manage-
ment it should have by this time taken a place
only second to the Royal Academy in professional
importance, but its existence was short. Ruskin
was the first dissentient : the committee invested in
a billiard table, which he took as an insult, as he
could play at no games, so he left ; then the arrange-

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

ment of an Exhibition open to the pubhc on payment,
instead of a changeable show of pictures open only
to the members' friends, brought up conflicting
opinions. Strangely enough, F. M. Brown was the
opponent of the scheme ; the club broke up under
the pressure of the struggle.

The most important picture shown on these
semi-private club occasions was Martineau's " Last
Day in the Old Home." The two most popular of
all the thousands of works afterwards shown in the
International Exhibition of 1862 were it and Brown's
" Last of England," in which he painted himself and
his wife, with the infant Oliver (afterwards to be
mentioned) in her lap. I may say of this picture
parenthetically, that it represents w^hat might have
been a fact in F. M. Brown's career. When
Woolner went to the gold-fields, and Holman Hunt
was hesitating about giving up painting. Brown had
similar plans floating in his mind, only, being of a
reticent nature, and also slow to act, he neither
talked of them nor put them in practice, except in
the way of producing this record of them after he
had found some small successes at home. These
successes were in finding a "patron" or two, the
principal being my friend James Leathart of New-
castle, who, with my advice, made an excellent
collection of the works of the new men — Holman
Hunt and Millais to begin with, then Rossetti and
Arthur HuQ^hes, Martineau, and above all, F. M.
Brown.

H. Here is a long note from Holman Hunt,

HOLM AN HUNT

49

much of it. however, about his affairs, which it is
needless to quote. The rest is mainly about a new
medium in painting and other matters of his studio,
highly worthy of record to the initiated. It is dated,
Tor Villa, Campden Hill, Kensington, i ith February
i860, while he was finishing — a long process extend-
ing over years — his "Christ in the Temple." He
says he had put away my "good-natured letter" to
answer at leisure, and now he finds it a month and
a half old, and is

overpowered by the feeling that no protestations of mine
will convince you of the pleasure I had in receiving it.
You know, however, that we are not always able to do
what we like best, and so will believe that I would have
sat down to have a chat with you about \arnishes and
about my present plans and engagements long ago, if I
had been able. . . . Well then : I seldom mix my copal
and turpentine together, not because there would be any
danger to the permanency of the work by such proceeding,
but only because the character of the surface obtained
thereby is not so pleasant to my taste as the fat full
firmness got by paint in its pure state as mixed with oil,
or when compounded only with copal. To avoid the
excess of this quality when it becomes difficult to work, 1
often begin by modelling all out with a turpentine dilution
of the copalled pigment. When I repaint over old work,
I often, too, soften the surface of the dry ground, and
modify the colour of it with washes of turpentine colour,
a dodge which has many advantages, not the least being
that it enables the two coats of paint to combine together,
as if painted at once, and thus obviates the danger of one
tearing up the other. You will, I daresay, have found out
the same plan, and by this time may have got over all
your difficulties with copal. . . .

I had written him about a small water-colour, a

VOL. II E

50 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

commission from a friend long in hand, but he was

unable even yet to say much, his great picture being

not yet quite finished, and in its last tedious state of

finish he was afraid to think of the smallest subject

of another kind, lest he should be seduced from the

little scrapings and stipplings-up of odd corners,

which was his present labour. When he had finished

this Temple picture, he said he would have to do the

same service for two other Eastern pictures brought

home, and several sketches, which would exhaust his

present Oriental mania, so that he would be glad to

clean his brushes and palette for open-air practice

somewhere in a green field with daisies and

country lasses sprinkled about. This would only

be a temporary aberration, however, for he cannot

believe that art should let such beautiful things pass

away, as are now passing in the East, without any

exertion to chronicle them for the future.

So I promise to return in spirit to the land of the
good Haroun Al Raschid, if I can't get there in the body
before the year is out. The little subject Mr. Crawhal
wants [this was the water-colour picture a friend in New-
castle wanted from one of Hunt's illustrations to Tenny-
son's poems] will scarcely require me to fight the fates in
the East, so I think I may promise to have it done and
forwarded to him, or kept here for his refusal, without the
danger of its being touched up by the hand of a quaran-
tine officer at some Syrian seaport, with the sharp punch
which promotes ventilation at all risks in articles pass-
ing through his hands. The important picture for Mr.
Leathart is a more serious affair, because I don't see how
I can paint it out of the rotation of commissions which
are of some depth — and with my slow brushes will require
some time. As I never or rarely undertake special com-

D. G. ROSSETTI 51

missions for settled subjects, but merely let the friends,
one after another, whose names are down, have the refusal
of each as finished, it is possible that I may have some-
thing earlier than would seem likely. I always try to
paint every new picture as unlike the one last painted as
possible, so people are frequently taken by surprise when
I show them my work, and thus pictures not my worst at
all, pass six or seven applicants before they are taken up.
. . . [He hopes I won't dread incommoding him if Mrs.
Scott and I should be coming to town, and will be his
guests.] I live so regularly that a lady would not be in
my way at all ; but I will not interfere with your earlier
plans. If you come alone, however, you could not be
more conveniently posted, or with more pleasure to your
host, than here.

This note, with its conscientious particularity and
exactness of detail, and kind, candid, and friendly
spirit, is very characteristic, and the press of com-
missions shows the mighty revolution in his fortunes
after the popularity of the " Light of the World "
had confirmed his position.

III. The process of finishing here described is
in curious contrast to that indicated by Rossetti
in a letter received about the same time, 13th
November 1859, both having been leaders in the
same movement. He says :

I have painted a half figure in oil, in doing which I
have made an effort to avoid what I know to be a
besetting sin of mine, and indeed rather common to P.R.
painting — that of stippling on the flesh. I have succeeded
in quite keeping the niggling process at a distance this
time, and am very desirous of painting, whenever I can
find leisure and opportunity, various figures of this kind,
chiefly as studies of rapid flesh painting. I am sure that

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

among the many botherations of a picture where design,
drawing, expression, and colour have to be thought of
all at once (and this, perhaps, in the focus of the four
winds out of doors, or at any rate among somnolent
models, ticklish draperies, and toppling lay figures), one
can never do justice even to what faculty of mere paint-
ing may be in one. Even among the old good painters,
their portraits and simpler pictures are almost always their
masterpieces for colour and execution, and I fancy if one
kept this in view one must have a better chance of learn-
ing to paint at last. One of the things I have finished
last you have seen — the " Sir Galahad." But far more
than that anything done I have been struggling in a
labyrinth of things which it seems impossible to get on
with, and things which it seems impossible to begin.

This letter is of infinite importance in the history
of Rossettis painting. It marks the first success in
life-size oil-painting, and the practice of his whole
later art-life has shown increasing mastery over half-
length female figures of a similar type. Millais also
before this time had protested that life was too short
to continue painting in detail as he had done with
such amazing rapidity and success. He was now
married, full of commissions, and unable to take up
half the success that lav to his hand. As to the
remark about the old masters, Rossetti had not seen
any of their chef-d'oeuvres, never .'/•/•'

having been in Italv ! ^4W%.

l\ . Let me enter here some _/ <'
extracts Irom Lady Trevelyan's
friendly notes. In her more familiar letters she
used often to address me as Mr. Porcupine, the

LADY TREVELYAN

defensive creature being drawn neady instead of

the word, and sometimes indulge in very rare

humour. We must be contented with only such
extracts as will add to our narrative,

Wallingtox, May i860.
I have finished my panel and am prepared for any
amount of abuse you may be pleased to bestow upon it. . . .
I have not heard lately from Algernon, but what I hear
of him is good. He has passed for his degree, and he
has written a poem (for the Oxford competition on TJie
Loss of Sir John Franklin) which his father and people like
very much. I am glad the Academy have ill-used the
Preraffs, it will perhaps lop off some rotten branches
in the shape of weak brethren, who paint bone-
less imitations of the school and bring discredit on it.
If these are convinced it is unpopular and does not pay
they will give it up, which will be an unmixed good.
I believe Mr. Ruskin is only going to Switzerland for
the summer. He will never go away for a very long
period while his father and mother are living. He has
always said that but for them he would go and live in
some favourite place in Switzerland. I shall be very
thankful if he doesn't write the XoUs this year, for he is
quite tired with his last volume, which he is just finishing ;
and if he does Notes at all, he should do them with all
his strength instead of half in joke, and at the end of six
months' hard work, while longing for a holiday. Is
Hunt's bargain really concluded ? We expect to go
south on Monday, when I will write you again.

V. Next from London. June i860:

I am glad to hear a good account of you from
Sir Walter, and that he had the pleasure of entertaining
the School of Art, students, inspector, and all, at a pic-
nic. I can only wish you had had a finer day for it.

54 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

How was the light for seeing the Hall ? Holman Hunt
spent an evening here very well and jolly. He is
finishing up odds and ends that have been put aside for
the great picture, and is very diligent at rifle-drill. My
brother Roland is also up and off to Walham Green
ever}- morning at seven, for ball practice, spending
bushels of cartridges. Yesterday I sent you a paper
about Captain Snow's Arctic search : he is to lecture at
Newcastle on the 19th and collect subscriptions. Now
I conjure you by all you believe in, mist}' philosophy,
gooseberry pie, and anything else equalh- sacred to you,
go to hear him and make others go. Do puff, do
ventilate the subject and make others take an interest in
it. If they don't care for the records and Journal, there
is always a chance of finding some of the crew alive ; if
they don't care for those, they may be moved by our old
flag going first round the world by the Arctic route and
not leaving that triumph to the stars and stripes, which
will be before us as sure as fate, if we don't mind.
I have set m}' whole heart on this search ; read the
Saturday Rcvieiv of this week about it. . . .

Seatox, Axminster, Aiignst 1S60.
VI. I have been ver}- long without writing, but I have
been awfull}' bus}'. I always am so here, where I am
among my lace people. Sir Walter gave me }-our note about
the spandrels. They have hung on hand shamefully, but
as we have been awa}' this summer, I suppose we shall
stay at Wallington in winter, and then I'll paint the yew,
and the fir, and an}-thing one can get in winter, and be
very industrious. Dreadful weather ivc have had, no paint-
ing out of doors, but I suppose it was all sunshine while
you were with Miss Boyd — that was so of course.
Holman Hunt wrote the other day to ask if the white
lilies were to be had, and offered to go down and do
them, but of course the}^ are dead and gone weeks ago ;
so I told him if he will be in England next lily season,
we would wait for that ; but if not, he must come to us
as soon as we get back and do dahlias, or sunflower, or

IV LADY TREVELYAN—MISS BOYD 55

what we can get. He was just starting on a tour with
Alfred Tennyson to Brittany, and I have not got his
answer. This was a week ago. Things get on so
slowly here when we are away. Sir Walter has determined
not to leave till our school is finished and its work started.
]\Ir. Woodward is also designing some seaside houses
for us, but it is such a dear little place. I don't complain
of staying on. . . . We have been in the west of
Cornwall, where the red geranium grows up to the bed-
room windows, and we found Mr. Nash painting at
Kyname Cove : he had been on the same picture for ten
weeks. . . . What are you doing now ? smoking and
getting fat in }-our new studio ? I expect to find you
fearfully fat and stupid when I come home. Is Grace
Darling finished ? Is she fearfully and wonderfully ugly ?
[I answered that Grace Darling was too far in storm to
be anything, but that the principal figure nearly the size
of life — the woman whose child had died in her bosom
unknown to her— was wonderfully noble, having been
painted from Miss Boyd.] Woolner can't get a block
of marble at present to do the Fairbairn children, so he
has been working on our group. Dr. Acland had a
gloomy voyage with the Prince to Canada. They were
in a dense fog as soon as they started, so wet a fog that
their clothes, beds, everything, were damp the whole time
till they were about 150 miles from Newfoundland, when
they suddenly sailed into bright clear air all ablaze with a
brilliant sunset, and they saw the fog behind them like a
thick white curtain from sea to skv.

S EATON, October 1S60.

VII. I think I had a letter from you since I wrote —
the one describing your " Grace Darling" picture, which we
have not yet seen, in which you go in as a great marine
painter, which, no doubt, you ought to be considering
your great love of the sea and your passion for voyaging
upon it, so that you are a sort of a fat peaceable sea-king.
Not like that " Cockney Turner," who used to go for a

56 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

voyage whenever he could, and had himself lashed to
the mast to watch storms when they came.

I am afraid we shall not see much of Algernon in
the north now dear kind Sir John Swinburne is gone.
What a loss he is ! It seems ridiculous to feel as if a
man of ninety-eight had died too soon, yet he certainly
has, for he enjoyed life and added to the enjoyment of
many other people. The shock of Sir Henry Ward's
death was the exciting cause of his last illness.

I have been reading Mr. Woolner's poem. Some of
it is very fine and there is a great deal of himself in it ;
but doubtless you will have seen or heard most of it.
I was in some hopes that the Tennysons would have
come to Wallington when we returned there, but that
has had to be given up, and they have gone back to the
Isle of Wight to receive some guests. Holman Hunt
was left somewhere near Falmouth making sketches.

I have taken advantage of some fine days to try and
make a little oil study of some plants out of doors, but of
course I got into many troubles. Hang the oil-colours ! !
why do they look so bright and strong and jolly, and in
two or three days go in and are all dim and dingy ? The
picture seems to want varnish. Must it wait for a year,
till it is quite hard, before it is varnished ? Now, I'll be
civil if you'll help me — I hope Mrs. Scott is well, and
that you've given up smoking.

Some allusions in these extracts require com-
mentary. Above all others, there is the first
mention of Miss Boyd, so dear to me from that
time till the present moment of writing. On the
1 8th March 1859, though I have omitted to record
the incident, while I was painting Bernard Gilpin
addressing the borderers in the church of Rothbury
after having taken down the gage of battle from

Etchea by WB.S.from a. Drawing iyD-GU.

NEWS-LETTER FROM W. M. ROSSETTI 57

the wall, I had a visit from a lady some few years
over thirty, ill and weary from watching by the
death -bed of her mother. I had not heard her
name before. She wanted to find a new interest
in life, and thought to find it in art. She was
somehow or other possessed, to me, of the most
interesting face and voice I had ever heard or
seen. I devoted myself to answer this desire of
hers, and from day to day the interest on either
side increased. At this moment I am sitting, on
a fearfully wet day, in her old family castle. Pen-
kill, in Ayrshire, where all these notes have been
written. This ancient house has been my summer
home and that of my wife, for many years, and
all the friends, with few exceptions, mentioned in
these pages have come to see us here ; the winter
half of the year Miss Boyd is our guest in London.
As important in my life as Wallington, infinitely
more so, indeed, the name will be or ought to be
the principal one in my later pages.

YIII. From my dear W. M. R.. 14th May i860.
He had kindly sent me a summary of about twenty
pages of the history of Sordello — I ought to call
it an explanatory essay on Browning's poem. Un-
happily I thought this nearly as obscure as the
poem itself. He says :

As to Sordello, I must give you up, hoping that the
pains of heresy don't await you round the corner some-
where or other. The particulars of his life given — Jiot
given, you would say — by Browning are nearer the
truth than most people suppose, or at least nearer some

58 WILLIAM DELL SCOTT chap.

versions and hints of the truth, for his Hfe is involved in
great obscurity. I have read the notice of him in Nostra-
damus's Lives of tJic Provencal Poets, and there is an
extended account of him in Tiraboschi's ItaHan hterature
which I shall look carefully into one day. [All of which
he might very reasonably have saved himself the trouble
of doing.] The sale of Hunt's picture is now settled ;
if the arrangement of which he told me yesterday week
came to pass, as I cannot doubt it did, Gambart buys
the picture with copyright for ;{J^5 500, of which ;^3000
was to be paid last Wednesday, and the remainder in
bills at eighteen months. This is a miraculous draught
of fishes, though I have little doubt that Gambart, being
a wide-awake man, will pay himself splendidly for the
outlay by exhibition and engraving, and finally by the
re-sale of the picture, which will have accumulated a huge
reputation meanwhile. A little time ago the receipts
at the door were ^30 a da)-, and a very easy sum in
arithmetic will show what this would come to throughout
the year. I concur as to the poorness of what has been
written about the picture. The one in Fraser ought to
be above the average : it is by a son of Sir F. Palgrave.
I have not seen it yet. The author has already published
various things, especially an anonymous book called the
Passionate Pilgi'iin, which evokes the enthusiasm of Pat-
more and some others. ... I have always been curious
to see what you make of " Grace Darling," and trust it
will be in my power, as a conscientious and eminent critic,
to pat your breakers on the head.

W. M. R. next asks me if I knew that Gabriel
is about to marry or, perhaps, is now married to
Miss Siddal, whom you have heard about and
possibly seen ? The family had been a Httle taken
by surprise at receiving from him at Hastings,
about a month before, the definite announcement
of the forthcomincr event, then to be enacted as

IV D. G. R:S marriage 59

soon as possible. Still later he had determined
that it might possibly be on last Saturday, his
thirty-second birthday. She is in the opinion of
every one a beautiful creature with fine powers
and sweet character. If only her health should
become firmer after marriage, William thinks it
will be a happy match. At all events he is glad
that Gabriel is settled upon it. " He leaves Black-
friars, but I think has not yet managed to suit
himself elsewhere." This sudden news was the
first I heard of Gabriel's marriage ; nor did either
I or his own family hear directly from him for
some little time after. Instead of leavinQ- Black-
friars he at last appeared there with his wife,
where he fitted up another room or two and
continued to live till her death.

IX. Three months later (in the summer of
i860) I was for the first time visiting Miss Boyd
and her brother at Penkill Castle in Ayrshire.
My wife was in London, and writes me about the
people she meets.

I am truly glad [she says] you are in such good
company as Miss Boyd and her brother, and finding
such delightful landscape subjects in the glen. . . . On
Wednesday we drove to the top of Highgate Hill, where
is S. Mary Magdalene Home. We spent a pleasant day
with the sisters and penitents in the open air, the Bishop
of London, etc. etc. . . . Christina is now an Associate,
and wore the dress, which is very simple, elegant even ;
black with hanging sleeves, a muslin cap with lace edging
quite becoming to her with the veil. Yesterda\-, at All
Saints, whence Christina and I went to see Woolner and

6o WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

the marble group for Wallington, which is now going
on. It is beautiful : and there, too, at last I have met
Tennyson. In the evening we had a party of about
twelve, among whom were Mr. E. Burne-Jones and his
wife. She is pretty, a very little creature, indeed, and
sang the ballad of " Green Sleeves " and others in loud
wild tones quite novel and charming. E. B, J. I think
extremely like a tall boy from school. William Morris
and his wife also looked in, but only for a few minutes,
having to go out of town by railway. You have not yet
seen either of these ladies, and I now heard that Mrs.
Gabriel Rossetti has not yet been seen in his mother's
house, and has been invisible to every one. I can't
think what countrywoman Mrs. Morris is like, not an
Englishwoman certainly ; but she did not untie her
bonnet, their hour by the train being at hand. Mrs.
D. G. R. has been ill — I suppose this preventing her
coming out : she was really dangerously ill on their
return from Paris, where she had been so well. Gabriel
has been planning to take up his abode there. It seems
Mrs. Madox Brown and her mother have been associated
intimately somehow, so she is with her every day. All we
little women looked quite diminutive beside Mrs. Morris.

These few words serve to show how nearly in
point of time these matrimonial affairs came to-
gether ; unless, indeed, the two now first mentioned
above had not been late events, although the ladies
were new to my wife. The Morris party going out
of town indicates that the house he built after his
marriage, the Red House, was already inhabited
by them ; and we must remember that the painting
of the Union gallery at Oxford, if it had no artistic
result, had an important one on the fate of William
Morris. One evening, after the labours of the day,
the volunteer artists of the Union resfaled themselves

IV THE RED HOUSE 6i

by going to the theatre, and there they beheld in the
front box above them what all declared to be the
ideal personification of poetical womanhood. In
this case the hair was not auburn, but black as
night ; unique in face and figure, she was a queen, a
Proserpine, a Medusa, a Circe — but also, strangely
enough, a Beatrice, a Pandora, a Virgin Mary.
They made interest with her family, and she sat to
them. Morris was at that time sworn to be a
painter ; she sat to him ; he forthwith ventured to
propose marriage, and here they were, starting for
his new house at Upton. In this house I first saw
her. It was designed by Morris in what he called
the style of the thirteenth century. The only thing
you saw from a distance was an immense red-tiled,
steep, and high roof ; and the only room I remember
was the dining-room or hall, which seemed to occupy
the whole area of the mansion. It had a fixed settle
all round the walls, a curious music-gallery entered
by a stair outside the room, breaking out high upon
the gable, and no furniture but a long table of oak
reaching nearly from end to end. This vast empty
hall was painted coarsely in bands of wild foliage
over both wall and ceiling, which was open-timber
and lofty. The adornment had a novel, not to say
startling, character, but if one had been told it was
the South Sea Island style of thing one could have
easily believed such to be the case, so bizarre was
the execution. This eccentricity was very easily
understood after a little consideration. Genius
always rushes to extremes at first ; on leaving the

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

beaten track of every day no medium is to be pre-
served. The repudiation of whatever is modern in
sentiment is immediate. There was the hatred of
Louis XIV., and all possible relation to school
advice and Birmino^ham taste. Morris did what-
ever seemed good to him unhesitatingly, and it has
been very good : not " Songs of the x-Vrt-Catholic,"
certainly, but " Songs of mediaeval life " ; The
Earthly Paradise has been the ultimate result.
In ornament he succeeds not quite so well, but he
has made an important position ; by and by he will
likely do better than anybody else.

X. Here under date of 5th October is some-
thing at last from D. G. R. ; as usual, I make use of
the letter only to carry forward my story — -

Many thanks for your note with its inquiries regarding
my wife, who I trust improves gradually. She is certainly
stronger now than some months back, and the approach
of winter does not seem to hurt her yet. We sent no
cards, too much trouble you know, or certainly you
would have got some. My wedding-trip was rather pro-
longed, and no place out of my studio must know me
this autumn, in spite of various invitations, tempting to
wife and self.

Soon after he writes again :

Lizzie is gone for a few days to stay with the IMorrises at
their Red House at Upton, and I am to join her there
to-morrow, but shall probably return before her, as I am
full of things to do, and could not go there at all, but
that I have a panel to paint there. I shall soon be taking
up Leathart's picture, almost immediatel}-, but have been
much interrupted lately by getting settled.

D. G. ROSSETTI 63

This was the picture he now called " Found,"
and this reference to it did not, I fear, really indicate
any intention of taking it up. My friend Leathart
had bought it at my recommendation, and paid for
it, as the figures were nearly done, but strange to
say, the background and the perspective baffled him.
He never carried out the proposal to bring it down
and paint it with me beside him at Hexham, but had
tried to carry it out by himself over and over, and
from the first had got the simple matter of perspec-
tive into a muddle. .As years went on Leathart
became impatient, the arrangement was annulled,
with my intervention, to enable him to return the
money : the picture never was finished.

I wish you could see how comfortable we have made
ourselves. And, by the bye, we have always a spare bed-
room, which please do not forget when you and Mrs. Scott
come to town.

This friendly invitation was never available,
indeed could only have been so for the next season :
before a second summer D. G. R.'s married life was
cut short by his wife's tragic death.

CHAPTER V

DEATH OF MRS. ROSSETTI ANECDOTES OF WALLINGTON

MY SERIES OF PICTURES OF BORDER HISTORY

BEING FINISHED, I LEAVE NEWCASTLE RETURN TO

LONDON.

The auguries of happiness from his marriage, enter-
tained by some of Rossetti's friends, were frightfully
dispelled. For myself, knowing Gabriel better than
his brother did, though from the outside, I knew
marriage was not a tie he had become able to bear.
His former bachelor habit of working till 9 p.m., then
rushing out to dine at a restaurant, was continued ;
Mrs. Siddal Rossetti, little accustomed to the cares
and habits of domestic life, willingly conforming.
She had become a genius in art, imitating her
husband's inventions in water-colours in a way I
clearly saw to be damaging to the peculiarities of his
own works, though her uneducated performances
were at once praised by him immoderately. After
her death we heard nothing from Gabriel, or from
any of the family, till he wanted me to be again his
banker to enable him to leave Chatham Place, where
he had not slept since the sad event. He then,

D. G. ROSSETTI 65

after a temporary abode in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
took the Chelsea house, 16 Cheyne Walk, where he
remained, and began a professional success which
increased through all the rest of his career.

To return for a moment to the great trial of his
life. In ignorance of the main circumstances, and
in obedience to a desire to comfort him, on receipt of
his letter about leaving Blackfriars I ventured to
tell him I never thought him fitted for a Benedict ;
but even to this he replied nothing, though long
after his mental prostration had subsided, and his
MS. book of poems was buried with her, I had to
listen, alas, too much to the painful narrative. On
the eventful night they had dined as usual at a cafe-
restaurant ; he had returned home with her, advised
her to go to bed, and unheedingly taken himself out
again. On his next and final home-coming he had
to grope about for a light, and called to her without
receiving a reply. What was said or done at the
inquest I know not.

Time is the great physician, but for the next
seven years, till his first autumn visit to Penkill in
1868, he wrote scarcely a line of poetry, except
sonnets for pictures. Why he revenged himself thus
on his distinguishing faculty I never could tell.
When success in painting, properly speaking, first
began on his acquiring a larger style on a large
scale, he became for him proportionately gay and
hospitable, carefully hiding the wound which, how-

VOL. II F

66 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

ever, continued to bite like the Spartan's fox. He
had a marquee erected in the garden in which he
entertained in the evenings, and at same time con-
structed enclosures and cages for animals and birds.
But, on the other hand, he began to call up the
spirit of his wife by table-turning. Curious to be
present at this serious divertisement, and not with-
out hope of undeceiving him in this matter of spirit-
ualism, I went one evening by appointment. I
refused to make one at the table unless I saw the
medium's feet all the time, as well as those of the
table. This being indignantly objected to by him
(not by her !) the sdmice was broken up. I never
went back, objecting to see him believing so im-
plicitly in a creature so abject.

This attempt of mine to be present was four
years after his wife's death ; it was in 1866, but
long before that year a common friend had written
to me : " One thing I must remember to tell you.
Our old friend Gabriel has gone into spiritualism,
and fancies he can call up bogies, and make them
knock on a table, I am exceedingly sorry. There
is only one consolation, it does not follow as a
necessity that a man's friends will be obliged to
confine him for such irrational doings. Many have
done this for years, pursuing their ordinary avoca-
tions, insane only on one point." Other indications
of unrest were soon apparent, resulting from a
confusion between external realities and mental
impressions, suggesting the question of what might
further develop in future life.

V WALLINGTON HALL 67

To return to my own affairs. The suggestion
that I should exhibit in London the eight large
pictures, now drawing to a close, was carried out,^
but Gambart pushed it over the season for other
more promising ventures ; the Exhibition did little
good.

The decoration of Wallington, however, left
room for other artistic labours besides my own,
which deserve to be recorded. In one of Lady T.'s
letters, already quoted, she speaks of Holman
Hunt's going there to paint a pilaster, and Ruskin's
visit to do so has been mentioned. Hunt never
managed to do this, but Arthur Hughes and others
did, especially Mrs. Mark Pattison, at that time
lately married to the Master of Lincoln, and one of
the most perfectly lovely women in the world. She
is now distinguishing herself in literature, but then
she gave proof of great ability in painting. The
group in marble for the centre of the Hall suggests
a little history. " Sturdy old Woolner," as \V. j\L R.
calls him in a friendly colloquialism, was invited
there through me. When I proposed the visit to
him I found him in a disposition to revenge himself
on the world at large for his want of success. At
first he swore loudly that he would not go near any
people with handles to their names ; they were all
" devastators of the day, maggots in the wounds of
us poor devils who have to fight the battle of life ;
Carlyle thought so, and also Tennyson!" His
phraseology was sometimes very strong, but his

1 [In 1861, see vol. ii. p. 7. — Ed.]

68 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

bark being worse than his bite, he did come, and
was commissioned to prepare this sculpture. He
was to summarise the result of all the surrounding
history, a vague motive which at last suggested
the beautiful work he produced, and which is now
there.

The commission was a pleasant surprise to me,
and was the beginning of immense success to him,
but, unfortunately, it was the mistaken cause of the
loss of my friend, Alexander Munro. Munro had
been with me to Wallington more than once ; the
year before Woolner's visit he had there modelled
both his host and hostess, afterwards executing one
of them in marble ; and he jumped to the conclu-
sion that but for me being interested in a brother
poet, Woolner would never have stepped in. At the
opening of the International Exhibition of 1862
the feud between the two sculptors — a feud of long
growth previously — was the cause of a public
scandal, through the Official Catalogue of the sculp-
ture there collected giving vent to a murderous
criticism against Munro's works. The sanction of
the Royal Commissioners to the publication was
withdrawn, but the evil was done. Munro never
recovered his position, and, as the fates would have
it, he was shordy after attacked by a mortal illness
that sent him to Cannes to seek recovery, where he
remained the rest of his life.

One more anecdote about ever-dear Wallington
and its inmates. It was close upon Christmas of
1862, when we — that is, the Newcastle group, Miss

V A. C. SWINBURNE 69

Boyd, Letitia, and myself — were preparing to
change the scene by flitting to the wild sea-coast
at Tynemouth for a holiday, when Woolner passed
through on his way north to see Sir Walter. Two
days later, early in the forenoon — when we were
great-coated and packed for the railway, Swinburne
suddenly appeared, having posted to Morpeth from
Wallington early that morning. Why so early "^ he
could not well explain ; just thought he had been
long enough there ! he wanted letters at the post,
but had not given his address ! I could inquire no
further ; there appeared to be some mystery he did
not wish to explain ; we went by a later train, and
he would accompany us. So we had him to walk
with us by the much -resounding sea, v/hen he
declaimed the Hynin to Proserpine and Laits
Veneris, two of the most lovely, perfect, and
passionate among the triumphs of his best period
of poetic performance, never to be forgotten when
recited in his strange intonation, which truly repre-
sented the white heat of the enthusiasm that had
produced them. The sea, too, was in sympathy,
the breaking waves running the whole length of the
long level sands towards Cullercoats, and sounding
like far-off acclamations.

My series of pictures being finished, and a com-
plete change effected in the organisation of Govern-
ment Schools of Art, so that we early masters
appointed by the Board of Trade had the option of

70 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

retiring with a small pension ; proximity to Edin-
burgh being besides unnecessary now my family
was extinct ; I returned to London in 1864.

When we prepared to leave Newcastle, we met
with various demonstrations of kindness, in the way
of public meetings, and I took with me a commission
for a picture of the building of the " New Castle "
by the son of William the Conqueror. Also for
eighteen pictures for the upper spandrels of Wal-
lington Hall, representing the history of Chevy
Chase, from Earl Percy's going out to the bringing
home of the dead.

If a man, artist, Iitte7'ate2tr\ or other, with a
specific professional object, lives in the country, he
may live a higher life than in town, but out of daily
collision with other men, his fellows in literature or
what not, he ceases to strive as they do for the
objects they value. He sees better because he takes
a bird's-eye view of the battle, and finds that many
things struggled for are not worth having. The
game is not worth the candle. Yet is it necessary
for him to live in society — for even the poet. The
acres of flatness in Wordsworth belong to the
country life he led ; his innovations and inspired
work to his association with Coleridoe and others.

We settled down in Elgin Road, Notting Hill.
. . . Being now again in London with an oppor-
tunity of entertaining my friends, I tried to bring
some of them about me again, and I may here give
some relics of the process. Meadows, I was one
day told, was still to be seen about his favourite

V KENNY MEADOWS— C. H. LEWES 71

Strand and Haymarket, so I sent him an invitation
to meet some of the men of a newer generation.
But he was in Jersey. Letter-writing was not in
his Hne ; but here is his reply, perhaps the only
fragment of epistolary rhetoric the old boy ever
indulged in.

I TivoLi Villas, St. Auben's Road,
Jersey, September 1867.

My dear Scott — Your kind recollection was like a
glass of our toddy of old times in a cold night, or a
sunbeam on a bleak world — a climax with the apex
downwards — but you will observe by it that your invita-
tion has driven me into fine writing. I should have
seized with avidity the opportunity of meeting some of
my old friends once more before I am made a cherub of,
but you see it was not to be done. The wind is S.S.E.
by north, and an antagonistic trifle of something like two
hundred miles lies between us. Nevertheless the invita-
tion was as agreeable as if it had been a chicken and a
bottle of champagne. Being at this distance I know not
if ever I shall see you again ; the event must occur before
we can be certain of it. I am living with Lucy and her
husband, who think me an old fool not fit to. be trusted
alone, and perhaps they are right. But whether or no, I
shall always remember \Y. B. Scott, and with him every-
thing he can wish for himself Kenny Meadows.

G. H. Lewes I was sure of finding. He and
Geot'ge Eliot were shortly leaving town, but he
invited me to dine with them and get acquainted
with his new wife, whom I found the most bland
and amiable of plain women, and most excellent in
conversation, not finding it necessary to be always
saying fine things. He, the plainest of men, was
much improved with years, and yet as enthusiastic

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

as ever. " I am often in that study of yours in
Edward Street," he wrote, "where we passed the
night ' talking of lovely things that conquer death,'
We both hope to see you again." When they
returned to town, I sent them both an invitation to
dinner, which brought this reply :

The Priory,
North Bank, Regent's Park.

My dear Scott — Ever since we came to live in
London, Mrs. Lewes has been forced to adopt the rigorous
rule of not going out, nor returning calls, except to friends
living out of town. On no other condition would life
have been practicable (that is peaceful and workful) for us.
This has also made me adopt the same rule, though less
absolutely, and as I do sometimes make exceptions, I
cannot refuse an old friend like you, so I shall gladly
come to you on the 25 th. — Yours, G. H. L.

CHAPTER VI

PENKILL CASTLE AND MISS BOYD DEATH OF SPENCER

BOYD MY PAINTING OF THE STAIRCASE MACLISE

When we returned to London towards the end of
1864, Alice Boyd, whom I shall probably in future
designate by her monogram /B., also desiring to
leave Newcastle, it was arranged that she should
make her winter home with us. She was detained
in the North by her brother's illness during our first
winter in town, but every winter since she has been
with us, and every year we have spent the late
summer and autumn months at Penkill.

Penkill Castle, the ancient Ayrshire homestead
of the younger branch of the Boyds, a family
sufficiently historical in Scottish annals, had been
suffered to fall into decay, the acres having been sadly
diminished, and Spencer, the heir, living in England.
When he came of age, he devoted himself to its
restoration, re-roofing the early part and building a
great new staircase instead of the narrow newel of
former years.

This old buildino^ was so interestinQ^ to me with
its recessed windows with stone seats and grooves

74

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

half-way down the window-jambs, showing which
portion had been glazed and which closed by shut-
ters, that I puzzled out its history very completely.
A large dormer window on the earliest part, orna-
mented with the nail-head, and a roll mouldinsf

which terminated

\ -

in a
knot, George Edmund
Street, certainly one of
our best authorities for
the history of our early
architecture, thought could
not be later than 1450;
but in outlying places I see
reason to think an ornament was retained later than
it continued to be produced in more central places.
Whatever date might be assigned to the first building,
it was simply a square tower, a peel as it has been
elsewhere called, consisting of four stories, the upper-
most having two corner turrets, pierced with loop-
holes for defence. The lowest of these apartments,
that level with the ground, was the stable, vaulted by
means of thin stones embedded edgewise. Above
this vault was the living-room, not large enough to
be called a hall, paved with very thick red and
yellow tiles. This room had probably been access-
ible only by a wooden stair outside, an arch in the
rubble wall indicating where the door had been.
Above this was the apartment called in ballads the
" Ladies' Bower," divided no doubt by partitions, as
here was a gardcrobe in the solid of the wall. A
narrow stair in the end wall also reached this room

VI PEN KILL CASTLE 75

from the one below, and another similar ascended to
an upper apartment, which may have had an outlet
to a narrow promenade surrounding the roof. In
1628, on the marriage of the then laird, the narrow
accommodation of this defensible house, typical of
the later middle ages, was found insufficient, an
outside stone staircase being built, and three large
rooms added, still, however, with thick walls and
small windows. Over the entrance to this narrow
newel staircase was inserted a tablet bearinsf the
heraldry of the two families, with their initials and
the date 1628. Two rudely-carved oak chairs, with
exactly the same heraldry, date, and initials, are still
among the furnishings of the house, a large one with
arms for the laird, and a little low one, a nursing-
chair, for the ladv. From the old times a hiQ;h stone
wall had enclosed the house, with a dove-cote at one
corner and a gate defended by a movable grill or
portcullis, which had latterly lain at the neighbour-
ing smithy for a century till its final decay.

The last addition, that made by Spencer Boyd,
had been done by renovating the whole building, and
making ante-rooms and landings between the great
new staircase and the rooms of both former build-
ings on each floor. These changes indicating the
development of civilisation have a historical value :
they bear an unmistakable evidence of our social
national advancement, as the geological periods do
of the development of the world at large.

The glen below the house was most interesting
to me, and revived my ancient landscape proclivities.

76 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

Every summer for nearly ten years I painted there.
The " friendship at first sight" was confirmed. Time
could not strengthen it, but the impression or instinct
of sympathy was changed by experience into satisfied
conviction and confident repose, I speak of my own
feeling of course. All my life I had tried for confiding
affection both from men and women when I had a
chance ; had made many attempts to realise it with-
out success. Not that I gave up the faith that two
men who are not brothers by birth can be more than
brothers by harmony of life. But while the fates
had been against me with men, here at last was a
perfect intercourse, made possible by the difference
of the sexes. As we sat painting together by the
rushing Penwhapple stream, in the deep glen, which
D. G. R. afterwards commemorated, listening to the
''Sti'eanis Secret " before he put it into verse — and I
too, by my three series of sonnets called The Old
Scottish Home, Outside the Temple, and those entitled
Lost Love, when there was a chance of /B.'s health
giving way ; or in town during the long winter
evenings reading a hundred books or enjoying
whatever a London season cast in our path, — there
had never occurred a misunderstood word or wish
which might divide us. My wife had faith in us
too, and /B.'s brother as well.

But he was soon to part from her and his beloved
old place. Their father having died when they were
infants, and their mother having married again, they
had been inseparable till the time when /B. came
to join us in London. This was in the spring of

SPENCER BOYD jj

1865. Her brother was to spend the following
Christmas with us ; w^e amused ourselves by deco-
rating the dining-room with a large banderole
inscribed Welcome, to receive him, and promised
ourselves a pleasant time.

For a few days we made holiday. Spencer Boyd
appeared quite well. His knowledge of architecture
and love of it induced us to spend a day inspecting
the clearing-out and refitting of St. Bartholomew's
Church in Smithfield, where we chanced to witness
an incident so curious as to be worth record, although
it breaks in upon my narrative and delays the sad
denouement. The workmen were lowering the
floor, which had become so silted up that the bases
of the piers were covered. To do this they were
removing the pavement, which was mainly of tomb-
stones, and as we entered they were prising up a very
heavy one, with an inscription still partially legible,
having been protected by the floored seats placed
over the entire nave at a later tinie. This was the
tombstone of the hairdresser to His Majesty Charles
n., one of the makers of the mighty wigs we see
him painted in, but I forgot to transcribe his name ;
and packed in below was a large quantity — several
wheelbarrows full — of white terra-cotta pins about
half an inch thick by three and a half long, each end
slightly enlarged. Neither the workmen nor their
superintendent could guess what these were for, but
we carried away some of them, and I found they
were curling-pins for these great wigs of the period.
The curling-pins were heated, and every long curl

78 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

of the wig was wrapped round one of them. This is
the latest instance known, I daresay, of the belong-
ino-s of the deceased being buried with the owner.

The evening of that day Spencer died. We
were sitting at tea ; my dog and his were heard
barking ; he set down his cup, saying he would let
them out ; we heard him do so, but he did not
return. By and by Alice, always careful about him,
went out to ascertain what caused his delay, and in
a little while I followed to hear her calling out his
name at his bedroom door, which she had found
locked on the inside. She had a presentiment that
caused her to be dreadfully excited, so that I threw
myself with all the force I possessed against the
door, bursting it open, and we found him already
dead. He had attempted to get into bed, but had
been unable to do so. The first doctor who arrived
undid his clothes, and I saw again the dark blue
suffusion round the region of the heart I had seen
on my brother Robert. He had died from the same
disease of the heart.

I forbear to describe the grief on that endless
nio-ht of the dearest of friends. We buried him in
the wildest storm of snow I ever remember, in the
family enclosure in the ancient ruin of Old Dailly
Church. He was the last of the direct line of the
Boyds of Penkill and Trochrague, who figure in
Scottish biographical dictionaries under various
headings : Mark Alexander, a soldier of fortune and
writer of Latin and Greek poems, some printed at
Antwerp 1592, others remaining in manuscript in the

VI PROPHECY ABOUT THE PENKILL BOYDS 79

Advocates' Library in Edinburgh ; Robert, Principal
of Glasgow University, and his father ; and that very
interesting and eccentric person Zachary, who wrote
no end of curious poetry, very like Ouarles in some
points, but unique in the familiarity with which he
treats his sacred heroes.

The summer after this sudden change to /B.,
as we were driving in the neighbourhood of the little
seaside town, Girvan, passing a place where had
traditionally existed a tower, possibly the oldest
house of the Boyds in these parts, we found a villa
in course of building on the very spot. Robert
M'Lean, the old coachman of the family, drew up
and looking about him, pointed to the shattered
stump of an ash-tree, and drew his mistress's atten-
tion to it. "That's it," was his emphatic announce-
ment. I found on inquiry that this remainder of a
tree was an after-growth from the stool of the last of
a pair of great ashes once associated with the tower,
long dear to the inhabitants of the little town, and
that there was a rhyme current among them to this
effect —

When the last leaf draps frae the auld aish tree.
The Penkill Boyds maun cease to be.

To defeat this prophecy, apparently approaching
realisation, a piece of the old wood, bearing a young
shoot still green and fresh, was cut off and carefully
planted. " The popular prophecy is of course correct
about us," said ^13., "but let us try if we can break
the connection with the ash-trees " ; so it was nursed
carefully, perhaps too carefully, as an ash-tree is not

8o WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

quite at home in a heated greenhouse ; next summer
it was still alive but its leaves were few, the second
season it was gone.

Towards the end of the year, back in town again,
I was preparing my winter's work in my studio,
when the long banderole with the word " Welcome,"
turned up, a melancholy memento of Spencer Boyd's
visit, and just then W. M. R. appeared, stepping
out of a cab at the door. It was a holiday at the
Inland Revenue office, he explained, and he had
come to get me as a companion to visit Mrs. Marshall,
the quondam washerwoman, now expert in calling
up the bogies and making tables rap. I had tried
various experiments in this matter of communicating
with the dead, but without the smallest shade of suc-
cess, but I would try again, and off we went, although
I did not expect much, he having been present at
his brother's on the evening I have mentioned.

The supposition of such communication is so
irrational, environed on all sides with irrationalities,
that I confess I only did try the experiment as an
amusement, but William Rossetti had written down
question and answer with all the circumstances of
the interviews he had had with experts for years,
and I was inclined to regard his judgment with
respect on literary matters at least. Besides, the
irrationalities in this species of spiritualism resemble
those of some forms of religion that are sufficiently
respectable. Invocation of saints is exactly the
same ; saints are the bogies of good people long
deceased, and they must be ubiquitous to answer

SPIRIT - RA PPING 8 x

every one's prayers, the same as those the spiritualists
try to bring about us. Well, as we drove along in
a rattling cab, thinking of the banderole I said to
William I would ask for Spencer Boyd. There
were two devotees besides ourselves with Mrs.
Marshall and her son and daugfhter-in-law. The two
men might have been confederates, but even then I
think it was impossible that my writing could have
been overseen. The room was upstairs, the largest
room in the house of the moderately respectable
domicile ; and the two women, old and young, were
as uncultivated and mentally unfurnished as the evil
genius of D. G. R. already mentioned. We sat
down at the table with the frowsy old mother,
her smart daughter-in-law, and the two strangers.
I wrote the name of my deceased friend on the
interior of a half- unfolded letter, and then, as
desired, I went along an alphabet, touching each
letter, and the knocks came correctly, spelling Boyd.
I began again and the knocks came correctly spelling
Spencer, a rare name. I then asked if the sjDirit
would tell me how long ago he died. "Ask it by
months," said the girl, " saying one, two, and so on."
The result was the knocks came at eight instead of
ten months, not a great fallacy for a spirit who is
reasonably supposed to keep no diary or pocket
calendar. Where did he die } was my next ques-
tion. "At Eldon," and with a little hesitation,
''Road.'' Elgin Road was my address, still this was
nearly right, especially as there was a Lord Eldon
as well as a Lord Elgin. But this very mistake,

VOL. II G

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

appearing to have a reason in it, as well as the young
woman proposing I should ask by months for the
period in my former question, indicated to a suspicious
observer some previous knowledge. No other ques-
tion was answered approximately right.

I went again to Mrs. Marshall with Mrs. Lynn
Linton without good result ; but this first interview,
instead of giving me any addition to my faith in
the table-rapping of spirits, had the opposite effect.
I saw in the approximation to truth the clever
guessing of the practised thought -reader by the
expression of the countenance. Every card-sharper
has this faculty, showing him how far he may go ;
and every successful schemer and man of law or
business, with or without his consciousness of any
impropriety, works by the same means. It was
at best guessing nearly right while the first clue
guided, and then farther and farther wrong. Read-
ing the expression is the art, and I believe w^omen
who are not usually troubled by logic and habits
of ratiocination are quicker than men in it. Miss
Boyd and I have a game at bezique every evening,
and I have found her a hundred times tell me what
card I had drawn, simply by looking at me. "You
have got a good card this time, I see ! I believe it
is the king — yes, the king, not the ace ! " and so
it has been.

The death of Spencer left his sister well dis-
posed to carry out his pious work of re-edifying
the old house, and she did so by proposing that I
should paint with some pictorial history the great

na Tjyiriiiiir Eoikes

jZe^z^^^ ^^2i4^^ <^^^<f^v

VI WALL-PAINTING OF PENKILL STAIRCASE 83

circular staircase which her brother had built. I
selected as my subject a series of scenes from
the lovely story of The Kings Quair, the poem
written by King James the First of Scotland at
the end of his imprisonment at Windsor. This
work, executed on the wall with oil pigments, the
medium being wax dissolved in turpentine, en-
caustic in short, occupied me three or four months
in each year, beginning in 1S65 and ending 1868.
The wall was three feet thick, and therefore taking
very long to be free either of damp or of the
corrosive quality of the lime, I had begun upon
it rather too soon, occasioning some repainting,
but I found this species of encaustic was almost
perfect ; most probably the pictures will now re-
main without further change.

Before determining: on this method of wall-
painting, the water-glass being then in successful
use by Kaulbach in Germany, and as it appeared
admirable in the hands of Maclise, in his great
picture, finished two years before, "The Meeting
of Wellington and Blucher," perhaps the noblest
of all war-pictures ever done, though scarcely at
all known to Englishmen, I consulted him. He
was unknown to me. I availed myself of the
introduction of j\Ir. F. G. Stephens, one of the
original P.R. B. set of men, who had gradu-
ally dropped into his true field, that of daily and
weekly critic of the art season. Slowness of
imagination and want of artistic excitability pre-
vent the mass of people and generality of critics

84 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

from even accepting so mighty and dramatic a
work as this in the Houses of ParHament, the
meetinof on the field of Waterloo of the two
triumphant generals, simply because the painter
has brought the elements of the historic scene
into tragic proximity — closer together, in short,
than they were on the wide area of the field of
battle. Stephens was too cultiv-ated to make any
such prosaic detraction from the value of the picture
in his writing about it in the Athencciuu, and
Maclise received his introductory note in a kindly
spirit. I found him to be a large, phlegmatic, sad-
voiced man, to whom success in life seemed to
have brought no pleasure, nor had the possession
of artistic genius adorned him with any social
nimbus. He was then drawing to a close with
"The Death of Nelson," on the opposite wall,
and in it he had taken care to avoid the fault
mentioned, fault in the eyes of the uninitiated,
but no fault at all in an epic invention. He
told me he had taken correct measurements of
the deck of the Victory or of some other ship
of equal dimensions, from gun to gun, had so
planned every point included in the picture from
careful observation and sketches, and had seen
the corps of men (seven in number if I remember
rightly) serve each gun as in action. No other
mode of operation could have given so vivid an
idea of the frightful daring of the old sea battles,
when the ^reat wooden hulls with a thousand
men serving a hundred guns ran close together.

VI MAC USE 85

yard-arm to yard-arm, and blew each other to
pieces.

When I explained my object in seeing him,
he gave me a slow sad look, and said his first
advice was not to undertake such work at all.
"But," he added after a moment, "if you do and
adopt ivater-glass as your plan, you can have all
my traps, which I am glad to be done with. I will
make you a present of the whole remainder of
materials. I hope to return to my studio and to
the easel pictures which I wish I had never left ! "
Saying this he pointed to his whole array of pots
of colour, palettes, and vessels, including the tin
kettle sort of machine for steaming the work when
done. His offer took me by surprise, especially
as there was no opinion expressed as to the merits
of this and other methods, or their comparative
difficulties. I could not, of course, take advantage,
or indeed reckon on such an offer, even if I had
determined on the water-glass medium. . This I
expressed, adding my wonder at his state of
regret, instead of triumph on the completion of
such great works. "Well, yes, I daresay you
are right. I know what they are, of course,
but the people I have to please are such indif-
ferent brutes and such ninnies. Nobody cares
for the pictures after they are done, or wants them
as far as I can see. Literally so, no one comes
to see this now it is about done. I have asked
the Ministers and others, and I see them passing
in droves to inspect Herbert's ' Moses ' there,"

86 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

pointing over his shoulder to the room where Her-
bert's picture was. " That convert to Romanism, the
barrister, brings them in droves and Herbert is
working the oracle, which I can't do, and shouldn't
put myself into the necessity of doing, do you
see. They look on him as a Michael Angelo
— they even knock at the door of this my wooden
chamber and inquire where the great picture is to
be seen ! " The outspoken candour of our one
supreme English history-painter was almost painful ;
I could only assent to his disgust at oracle-working.
"Well," he went on, "you think I need not care?
Perhaps not, but as I am not going to do any more
of this, but am about to return to what I like best
in my studio at home, I have no more use for all
these things."

This interview, showing me as in a glass, but
not darkly, the true feelings of a true man, was
not of much use to me in the matter in hand, but
of infinite interest. A similar feeling, modified by
the individual character of the speaker, I have
encountered repeatedly in the best painters I have
known. My brother for one completed his best
works in a state of despair. When I went into
D. G. R.'s studio to see his large " Dante's Dream,"
I found him in a similar state, hidden under a kind
of ferocity ; and I remember Holman Hunt, the
success of whose "Christ in the Temple" was too
great to allow of discontent, saying with a haggard
expression of face, "It is well for once, but I'll be
now found out. I can never do anything more ! "

VI DESPONDENCY IN MEN OF GENIUS 87

The cause of this, which has descended to us from
the time of Michael Angelo himself, but is more
peculiarly an insular disease nowadays, results
mainly from the unpopularity of exceptional genius.
The man as well as his work is shied by his pro-
fessional associates as well as the public : he is
not "one of us." There are exceptions where
popular qualities are mixed with the unique merits
that render a work peculiar and original, so en-
suring the praise of the public and of the critics
who cannot see, or will not risk recognition of the
greater qualities. Popular qualities make work
easy, and mitigate the mental strain. Among
poets I have never seen any similar frame of
mind follow publication, even when no recogni-
tion at all has followed. In this respect the fate
of the painter is harder.

CHAPTER VII

LETTERS FROM HOLMAN HUNT, JERUSALEM, 1870-71

Before returning to my own home circle I may give
here some letters from Holman Hunt, then living in
Jerusalem, struggling indefatigably, as he always did,
with a new subject, this one being the " Shadow of
Death." The tone of Hunt's mind and letters is
in curious contrast to our idle experiments about
spirit-rapping and such like stuff, but perhaps not
so amusing. He has allowed me to give these letters
verbatim.

Jerusalem, 'jth April 1870.

My dear Scott — I have a long time to stay here
still, and I don't feel disposed to wait patiently until
my return to England for the next communication with
you. I send this scrap, then, as a threatener of future
letters, and as a petitioner for some news and thoughts
of yours.

You should see how grand I am in my desolate house
here ; it is about large enough for a family of ten or twelve,
and I walk in dismal dignity about the unfriended rooms.
Two servants attend upon me, and sometimes a country
man or woman is staying here as a possible model. I
assure you at first starting, even with my old experience,
it required no ordinary perseverance and energy to get to

CHAP. VII LETTERS FROM HOLMAN HUNT 89

work. The house was the first difficulty, and then the
model-finding. The difficulties were all the greater to
me because I had altogether forgotten my Arabic at first.
Little by little now I am getting about as forward as
I was when I left nearly fifteen years ago, and as I pay
well, the procuring people to sit does not promise to
be such a bother as formerly. One great trouble, indeed,
is to know what to think of my own work. If I could
show it to some one like yourself I might save much
painful uncertainty.

You are one of the few men I know who would truly
appreciate this country. When I say this, I remember
very well some of your views about religious matters
associated with Palestine, but you would be delighted with
the number of realisations of ancient days and ways one
feels as one goes about. We pass not merely from village
to town, and from town to desert, or to an Arab encamp-
ment, lying down for the night's rest under the unscreened
stars ; but we pass from century to century, from Abraham
to Cambyses, from Herodotus to Jesus Christ, then to
Mohammed and so to the Crusaders. There are, too, such
undreamed-of scenes as though they did not belong to
this world, but rather to the moon. You know how
above all my life-affections is my love of Christ, yet of
late I had felt it to be time that I should take stock of
thoughts which should never crystallise. Since leaving
England I have been reading Ecce Homo, Renan's Life
of Christ, etc., * * * *

* * * also I have further

re-read very attentively the whole Testament, marking
down all its questionable points and comparing passages
with determination towards unbiassed judgment, and the
result is that I believe more defiantly than ever. You
will think I am not consistent when I say further
that I think the evangelists made many mistakes, that
they did not themselves understand what had been said
to them. But nevertheless, as the books stand, being
written in absolute good faith, correctly reporting what

90 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT CHAr.

passed, this seems to furnish convincing arguments for
the truth of their subject. As to Renan, with all the
valuable and splendid observations in his book, I saw
symptoms of bad faith in his search for truth, and I
find his acumen very shallow, and his sentiment most
tawdry, and this assisted in making me feel that Chris-
tianity, even in its highest pretensions, must be true.
You will know I am not saying this in ignorance of
critical and scientific theories. I wish I had you here to
explain more thoroughly my way of accepting evidences.
I should not hope to convert you, but think I should be
able to show you ways of interpreting not at all generally
propounded, and make you more prepared to see Chris-
tianity sending out fresh branches than you are now.

I ought to explain what I mean by " highest preten-
sions." I do not use the phrase in relation to the
authority of the Church, I mean the direct supernatural
origin and nature of Christ, that He really came down
from heaven, from the dwelling-place of divinity, that He
performed miracles, that He rose from the dead, and
returned again into heaven, — there 1 I have almost written
out the creed. My belief is that as man was a new
development in animal life so was Christ to us. You
may contend that this was by gradual evolution. My
reply would be that nothing comes of nothing, and that
a new perfection must be made by the Master Artist.

I am glad that you have been publishing the Life of
Diircr, not that I know the book yet, but I rejoice, now
that so many who know nothing about Art issue volumes
in tens and hundreds about it, that an artist should once
on a time say something derived from practical observation
and experience. Professed critics — and I say it with all
deference to our old friends who follow that line of busi-
ness— are becoming a great impediment to true healthy
art. They fabricate theories by brain machinery, every
one has his law. To hear A. when at Rome pro-
pounding his dogmas was too edifying 1 I did not argue
with him, because for the short time we were together we

VII LETTERS FROM HOLM AN HUNT 91

had much more entertaining talk. It is the same with
B., somewhat the same with C, and also with D., who
is of course a critic too. They talk as though they
regarded artists as waiting for their orders. We, too,
at times have our crotchets at nights, but the easel work
of the following day modifies them : we determine, to
wit, that on no occasion should the teeth be shown
in a face, etc. etc., but some exceptional case is soon found
when the ingenious idea will not do, another and another
case for which it is not suitable arise, and then we give it
up, perhaps even forget it, while as theorists we should
have sworn by it to the end of our days. Art is now, it
seems to me, becoming less hopeful in England, because
two or three sets of influential artists are adopting " laws."
To me their art is losing the vitalit}- which gives worth
of a lasting kind. Sculptors are most driven to become
traditional, because there are so few subjects which they
can take from passing life either for form or idea. Albert
Durer, to return to our particular subject, seems to me a
greater man as a designer for engraving than in painting.
All that I saw of him in Italy disappointed me. I had
imagined much more perfect drawing and painting too
than I found,

I am now reading an Italian translation of Marc'
Aiirelio Antonino. He strikes me as having been a sort of

classical . His head never appeared to me that

of a strong man, but until now I had never read enough
of him to trust that impression. When I was a boy, a
friend of mine who worshipped him used to talk much of
him, and quote much ; at that time his philosophy seemed
to me more wonderful and comprehensive than it does
now.

Have you lately given any attention to spiritualism ?
A painter who came here for a short time, who did not
appear a fool though he was not a very wonderful artist,
openly professed himself a thorough believer in it, and
the evidence he advanced would have been convincing
had he not been deceived. This I felt he must ha\'e been.

92 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

when it came to light that a man he had trusted here, and
who had acted as his interpreter, had robbed him in the
most ridiculous manner from his very pocket, time after
time. His great agent was Mrs. Marshall, and he declared
that all the artists, naming several academicians, were
taking it up. Here there seems to be something of the
kind among the Moslems, but it is only practised in great
secret. The reports of the proceedings are wonderfully
like those of the spiritualists at home, although having 7io
tables they are less ridiculous, and the manifestations are
more material ; they begin, however, by imploring the aid
of Shaitan, or I would try to get them to operate here. I
have no reason to believe in it, but I should have liked to
examine it impartially. Mrs. Guppy came to Florence
while I was there and startled some people, but on inquiry
I found that the more sensible members of her seances
had been convinced that she had recourse to imposture.
Old Kirkup was still a believer ; I should think by this
time he must be a spirit himself

How can you get on in London without Arabic?
Tyib, mafish, inshallah, wakri, etc. etc., are surely words
that no fellow can do without ! Confess now, don't you
often find yourself in difficulty for want of them ? I select
those because they have no gutturals. Have you heard
of the drought we have had here ? at last some supplies
have reached us, not much, but enough to make painting
in water-colour a possibility. — Yours ever,

W. HoL^iAN Hunt.

This " scrap," as he calls the document, interested
me much. The persistent dependence on the prin-
ciples that recommend themselves to the common
sense of the generality is notable, and the criterion
by which he sets aside the trustworthiness of
the advocate of JNIrs. Marshall's miraculous powers
is very characteristic. One of the most valuable

VII LETTERS FROM HOLM AN HUNT 93

features of Holman's intellect is his acute practicality
in the ordinary affairs of life. Thus the man who
let himself be robbed systematically was not to him
a credible witness : and he was perfectly correct. I
wrote to him both about his views of the historical
part of the New Testament and about other things.
Happily it is not possible to enter viy letter here,
but this is his reply, dated Jerusalem, loth August
1870:

My dear Scott — I will take up the questions in
your letter of the 26th May in the order in which they are
presented. You are surprised, first, by my declaration
that recent examination here in Syria of the history
recorded in the Gospels has removed difficulties I was
ready to admit. If I said that increased confidence had
resulted from the opportunity of seeing the actual spots
where the writers place the events, I was saying more
than I intended. My objections were silenced rather by
closer and more free-thinking examination of the records.
Artistically I admire the country very much as suitable
for such history, although I see it would not satisfy your
requirements any more than it does those of the clergymen
who come here, who confess, perhaps reluctantly, their
disappointment with nearly one voice. This feeling of
theirs forces me to recognise that they cannot bear the
actual realisation of the subject. Their ideas are still
mythical and vague, and thus it is difficult to regard them
as happy and confident in their belief, since they cannot,
like you, regard the history simply as a poetic dressing of
half-forgotten facts. You start with the proposition that
the history is supernatural, this in its most scientific
sense ; my mind commences with the inquiry as to what
is within and what without the pale of natural law.

You don't answer a question I put in my letter,
whether you have had any recent experience in spiritualism?
I have Jicver had any, but I may take you as a witness to

94 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

the fact that certain mysterious powers acting on others
do exist in individuals, which science wholly rejected when
they were first brought before the public. It will serve
here to revert to the story of your visit to Mrs. Marshall,
when she told you that within a twelvemonth a friend had
died suddenly in your house, speaking with sufficient exact-
ness to make you think she had had information of the
death of Mr. Boyd. It may be said this information had
been obtained by material agency, although the difficulties
in the way of this solution were considered by you too great.
Mesmerism in other forms remains beyond question, forms
which were regarded as impossible when first announced ;
what is or is not supernatural is not, you see, infallibly
determined. My notions of this world and our life in it
come from what I feel and see myself and hear from
others. If no scientific explanation of what has occurred
to myself can be given, I will not accept it for other and
greater questions in history. Your difficulty in believing
in the Godhead of Christ comes, as it seems to me, from
your terribly distant idea of God. [He refers here to
my holding by the " SJiorter Catechism of the Divines at
WestJninster" definition of God: ''God is a Spirit, in-
finite, eternal, and nnchangeable, in his power, wisdom,
holiness, Justice, goodness, and trutJir\ I come with no
preconceived ideas of any kind to the subject ; I am
ready to accept the most practical of the many pre-
sented to me, that which tallies best with the view of
His purpose of increase in the goodness, justice, and
love, which the world, as made by Him, exhibits. I
have no fear of offending by not doing justice to His
dignity, because I find that men who think of their
dignity are poor creatures. And the discovery that man
has invented an infinity of fables to incorporate his
notions of deity, need only be kept in mind as a reason
for scrutiny. ... I see no difficulty in admitting the
possibility of " supernatural " acts in connection with
paganism. I believe entirely in the Daemon of Socrates,
and I credit, without hesitation, the possibility of a " re-

LETTERS FROM HOLM AN HUNT

95

velation," in a dimmer way, to the Greeks, Egyptians, and
Persians ; but it was a lower grade than that of the Jews
and Christians.

Perhaps, however, the strongest conviction I have on
these subjects comes from the consideration of the effect
of the two views (reh'gion or no reh'gion) on h'fe. What
is the reason of the dead-ahve poetry and art of the day,
if not in the totally material nature of the views cultivated
in modern schools ? Trying to limit speculation within
the bounds of sense only must produce poor sculpture,
feeble painting, dilettante poetry. What else could be
produced when the mind revels only in the body's hopes ?
To measure and imitate the works of soul-inspired workers
of previous ages is not producing the bread of life. It is
foolish as it were to give a babe a lay figure for a wet
nurse. I again wish you were here, not because I think
the country would satisfy your poetic dreams, but because
you would for the time be able to consider the question
free from the influence of European artificial life.

With all the weakness of the men who conduct the
business of religion, the noblest efforts of society are made
by them. Who try to civilise the savage, to reclaim the
convict ? Who pick up the ragged boys from the gutter ?
who snatch the children from premature labour in pit or
factory ? who try to work out a plan of life without war ?
who try to raise women from infamy ? " By their fruits
ye shall know them " is an axiom simple and divine in
wisdom. What, on the other hand, do your philosophers
do ? Surely nothing of an unselfish kind in comparison,
although I thoroughly believe that much is left for them
as counterpoise to the narrowness and rancour of bigots.
In going over the Bible and Testament you wall find lots
of difficulties and objections if you are like me. I find
man to be slow of conviction and still slower in change of
habit, and the prophets have spoken oft and men have
professed to be converted, and their actions have pro\ed
this to be delusion. I am sure that you would find
wisdom by careful study which had not appeared before.

96 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

Everything shows me that this hfe itself is a trial and a
question. I lately made out the parable of the unjust
steward ; what had seemed actually objectionable before,
I saw in an instructive and interesting sense. But I must
not go on to all eternity — though this convulsion of war
may reach here any hour, and time close upon us before
the closing of this sheet ! Yet I must add a few words,
for I had altogether neglected one of }-our arguments, viz.
that of the physical absurdity of His body having been
received up into the clouds (which are nothing, while
astronomical distances are vacuums thousands of years
away), and you find this part of the story to be explained
by the cosmogony of the time that heaven was in the
circumjacent sky. Now our artistic experience may give
some illustration of the way in which God might work.
In finding a desirable idea to illustrate we have a sense
of its beauty not limited in any way. When we have
to express this to others all manner of restrictions present
themselves, from the nature of the language and the
materials of our art, and from consideration of the intel-
ligences we address. The object of the artist, as of the
Creator, is to put the idea into material form, and I can-
not think of any better way of suggesting that this One
had escaped death than by making Him visibly ascend
from this earth. What became eventually of the body it
is scarcely in our province to determine ; but since we
are told that a condensation of gases in the atmosphere
can make a solid body like a thunderbolt, it is competent
for us to imagine that His body was resolved into its
original elements, to be reorganised perhaps at a later
time.

You ask about my subjects. As I am very anxious
that you should see my pictures without any preconceived
ideas in your mind, I would rather defer revealing them.
I may perhaps in the spring get one of these finished, and
I shall come with it to England, and then I shall ask you
to tell me whether my work is good or bad. I am paint-
ing very hard indeed. I should like, meantime, to know

VII LETTERS FROM HOLMAN HUNT 97

what you are doing, for you are working among others
and perhaps not keeping your subjects a secret.

But I must shut up now. Kind regards to your wife,
and any friends you meet. — Yours ever,

W. HoLMAN Hunt.

I find among my papers of this next year, too, a
continuation of the Holman Hunt correspondence,
which, long as the letters are, ought to be introduced
here. He is still painting in Jerusalem, and still
thinking about religious matters ; but he is becom-
ing tinged with a morbid distrust of his own great
powers, and also with doubts of his friends at home.
He is evidently shut up too much by himself, and
working too hard — confined too much to one subject.
This first letter is dated 20th February 1871.

My dear Scott — I was glad to hear from you at last.
Your letter came by our latest post. Your long silence
had not led me to think that you were bitten with the
fever which so many of my friends and acquaintances
seem to suffer from, making them conclude I arn a mon-
strously over-rated person, and that it is their particular
duty to let me know this important fact as distinctly as
their several natures will allow. After exhausting the
surmises of accidental hindrances, the danger was that I
should jump to this conclusion ; but my constant experi-
ence of your extremely broad principles in estimating art
and character forbade me to take such a leap as I might
have done with others. But there are not many of the
band who used to treat me as their authority, who have
not lately indulged in a conscientious avowal of their
recognition of my demerits ! Thus the wind blows
towards the sun !

I hope, after all your trouble in the old house you
have taken [Bellevue House, Chelsea], you will find it a

VOL. II H

98 ] VILLI AM BELL SCOTT chap.

comfortable haven of rest. I remember looking at and
talking of it with friends many times as an inviting one
for an artist. Chelsea I have always liked ; but when in
England last I was obliged to avoid all proximity to the
Thames from having the Syrian ague in my blood. This
guest would probably be no quieter from my second
residence here, which has given me two or three fresh
attacks of it ; so if I ever come to live in London, I shall
still have to choose Kensington, Hampstead, or Highgate
as my place of torture from organ-grinders, halfpenny (?)
postmen, tax-collectors, etc.

We are going to be still farther apart, it seems, in the
next life ! You are going into the Elysian fields with all
the genius of the age, while I am to make myself as
comfortable as circumstances will permit with greasy
methodists and spick-and-span orthodox parsons in the
commonplace heaven ; but I have not Dante's assurance
in claiming Paradise for my home. I don't pretend to
know what my deserts may be — but it will be said that I
am rather too fast here, counting too much on my host
where no host may be found, seeing God Almighty does
not exist at all. Here was a truth to discover ! Hitherto
men of worldly wealth only delighted in the thought ; I
think no one of intellect in any century before ours could
have done it : an inspiration — no, that's not the word — a
conception, in all the majesty of the big-boy style, at first
by Shelley, not held proudly by him later, but now by
other combinations of poetic atoms, even more newly
moulded from earth, but now published as settled with
omniscient penetration of mind that can reach within the
innermost veil of all, and discover there is nothing, where
poets before them have dreaded even to peep, lest an
awful majesty should revenge itself. Thus foolish genera-
tions have died in the hope of reward for their awe at
least. Unhappy slaves were these who without the
eternal halo of genius round their names are lost in the
world to come. I have no idea of the grim sublimity : it
seems to me that in this day the eternal powers I re-

VII LETTERS FROM HOLM AN HUNT 99

cognise have a great sense of fun, and that were they
such as we, they might be in some danger of convulsions
just now.^

You say true, that I have had no experience whatever
of (professional) spiritualism of a kind to justify me in
believing in any celestial guidance of the affairs of the
world, and that I have no arguments to offer in proof of
the possibility of facts such as those recorded in the
Testament. But in my own experience I have had
occasional presentiments r.nd other psychological con-
sciousnesses, of a nature that forbid me the conclusion
that we are mere burning bonfires, to cease with the con-
sumption of the fuel. These experiences, of course, would
only serve to my own conviction, and so they need not be
cited ; from the conclusions they suggest to me, however,
it is an easy transition to the best religious revelation I
can find. I thought perhaps your own consciousness had
given you something not less indicative of post-terrestrial
vitality than I had experienced ; every man must be
guided by his own light : if I can find any that suits me
more than that I see by at present, so much the better.

I hope you will not give up painting, but am glad you
are writing on art. There is a temperance and an insight
at the same time that practical men have, wanting in the
criticisms of those who have no means of testing and
refining their groping ideas and theories. The fault
practical men are in danger of, in writing for the public,
is the adoption of a spirit of severity and exclusiveness
necessary for the studio, where we must settle upon one
particular treatment only. No man that I know is freer
from this peril than you.

As yet I have no confidence that I shall get my

1 I cannot now remember in the least what could have called
forth this astounding tirade. It must have been some report or
statement in my letter Hunt had just then received. In copying this
out, at first I began by combing the entangled sentences a little
smooth, but soon gave that process up. He seems to have been in
such a state of excitement that his language flew in tatters. The
reader must puzzle out the intention of his harangue.

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

picture done. Much depends on the weather ; lately it
has been so wet and windy I have not been able to get
out of doors to paint. Unless there is a break I have no
chance whatever. Fortunately there is a prospect of this,
but at the best I am in doubt. If I come home it will be
about the end of April ; should I be too late for this I
shall probably stay here another year, and thus get enough
done to be able to move to another part of the world for
future work. ... I am glad to hear there is a chance of
England doing something in art after all ! The discour-
aging fact I saw was that men were getting into the way
of doing annuals, a certain number for every season. At
the Paris Exhibition of i 8 5 6 I was much struck by the
insignificance of certain pictures that had been great stars
on their first appearance in Trafalgar Square. The
French, with what seemed to me decidedly lower painting
talent, were doing better things, showing the particular
qualities we had in such perfection up to about thirty
years ago in \\ ilkie, in Turner, and even in Leslie —
freedom from pose-plastique or theatrical character. We
seemed to have lost and the French to have gained this,
but without the poetry and beauty, and it struck me we
had got in exchange qualities that would not wear very
well : but the evil may correct itself Certainly as
years go on in one's life they teach us that many things
one looked to to give life interest are mere bubbles ;
one's occupation of time becomes even more sacred.
In this way I feel the most intense desire that our
country should be glorious in art, at least in painting, in
which it has certainly done enough to give hope were
there architectural patronage. — Yours ever truly,

W. HoLMAN Hunt.

P.S. — I add a postscript and a bit of maidenhair fern,
from Nazareth, for your wife. I collected it myself from
a cave there, so I know it is genuine, which will make her
value it the more.

Ah, the war ! I of course have not had the details

LETTERS FROM HOLM AN HUNT

that every one in London has devoured, but it has been a
subject of exciting interest to us all : the poor French
connected with the Consulate seem to have lost all their
life. Ordinarily all Europeans come out at five or six for
a promenade, the Consuls attended by kawasses (con-
stables with long silver batons) ; but after the reverses of
their army the French postponed their walk until dark,
when all but myself had abandoned the road, and latterly,
since the greater distresses, they have hidden themselves
altogether. When by chance one was met he nearly
always had red eyelids, and had lost all his national
gaiety. There is one very nice fellow here, a concelleria
to the Consul, who recently, having absolutely disappeared
till then, came and called upon me, perhaps because he
heard that I avoided every other soul in the place, and I
have made an exception with him, and enjoy seeing him.
It is more fortunate that I happen to have anti-Prussian
feelings of late, this because I feel persuaded that Bismarck
played the whole game of bringing on the war at his own
foolish time, managing so to irritate L. N. and the French
nation, that they saved him from the appearance of being
its author. When the Prince of Prussia was here, without
seeking the honour, I had the privilege of talking with him
and some of his suite, and they impressed me as such
superior people, that the success of their army has not
surprised me. I believe it is, where other things are equal,
personal morality tells in an army. What could be ex-
pected from a set of immoral braggarts like the French
soldiers against a set of vigorous husbands and healthy
lads with honest sweethearts behind them — as the
Prussians are ? I dislike the Prussians only because they
seem to be at this juncture Machiavellian -led, and are
believing in craft for national policy, and are successful in
this for the time.

I was here when the Crimean War was going on there.
I could not understand how people in England could
think, as they seemed to do, of anything else. When I
heard of a man marr\'in"- it struck me as being against all

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

natural feeling : I was wrong of course, but remembering
that time I am now rather surprised and pleased to see
how much England seems stirred at the misery of this
war. Is the world getting softer-hearted ? I hate war,
but sometimes reading of it I feel a fury urging me to
rush into its midst and spill my life, in desperation to
have done with a world in which I can see no place for
peace and hope. W. H. H.

Jerusalem, ^oth September 1871.

My dear old Scott — I should never have let so
long a time go by without acknowledging and answering
your last letter, but, indeed, this picture of mine treats me
so severely that I am a miserable slave, with no time for
anything but just the attempt to sustain life and strength
enough to wrestle with my work, which plays the part of
a tenacious foe. I ha\e engaged m}^self in a very
difficult struggle, and I have been unwise in many ways
in the battle. Do you remember Herodotus's account of
Sc}-thian warriors, who being absent on a long campaign,
came back to find that their impatient wives, anticipating
widowhood, had elevated their hewers of wood and drawers
of water into the position of second husbands, and that these
their successors came out armed to do battle, and indeed
did valiantly contend with the veteran warriors, until one
old Ulysses said in council, " What do we ? W'e are treating
our slaves like equals, and so they are inflated with
courage to fight with us ; but now follow me, and we will
soon vanquish them." So sa}-ing he took a whip, and with
this rushed into the ranks of the impudent servants, and
thus put the ignoble rabble to rout. Now, you see, I
change my relative position to show the application of
this. I am now in my psychical entity one of the Scythian
warriors. My picture in its conceived perfection is the
disputed plane of the eternal earth, or part of it. My
happiness and ease are my wife (or wives, for I may be a
polygamist in my art loves). I have too long left the
dwelling-place of comfort, and now m}' paints, my brushes,

VII LETTERS FROM HOLM AN HUNT 103

my tools, my aids, the sun, morning, evening, working time
and resting time, the wind, the clouds — all my helpers in
proper place have risen with my peace of mind, long since
unfaithful to me, to oppose my resumption of my rights.
And here I recognise the wisdom of the old Scythian's
counsel — too long unacted upon because I have been im-
patient, and too anxious to take vengeance upon my slaves.
If I had treated them from the beginning more contempt-
uously I might long ago have vanquished them. To speak
prosaically and plainly, I have grappled with the difficulties
of this picture so seriously and slavishly for so long that
I suffer now in my capacity for completing it from want
of that elasticity of mind so essential to one for triumph-
ing over the final difficulties of a picture. But, indeed, in
this case there was no choice, for the work had and has
peculiar obstacles, which could only be confronted by
extra and even unlimited steadiness. Without this I
should have had to give up my work, and with it the
question is whether I shall not then be like a warrior
who, in conquering, has desolated the country and made
it worthless ; nous verrons. Looking at it in my dejection,
I am apt too much to trust the cheerless view of the
end ; however, rest may give me a better idea of it. I
have no loving eyes to cheer me such as I hoped to have
ever with me when I left England. I shall enjoy the
opportunity of showing it to you whatever its prospects
may be, for to have come to an end with it, and to be
free to do another picture, will in itself be a comfort.

Do you know — not in a manner of speaking, but in
sober earnestness — I thought in the middle of the summer
it would be the death of me. I got but about four hours'
sleep each day, and these were scarcely rest, for my
feverish anxiety went on through the night, and I dreamed
of nothing but newly-discovered faults — of paint drying
before it could be blended, of wind blowing down my
picture and breaking it, etc. — until my eyes sank so
deep into my head, and 1 became green, and my body
seemed such a heav\', stiff, and unelastic corpse that I

I04 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

thought the next stage must be cofifinward. And now
that it is past, people here tell me they thought me a
doomed man. Had I got a fever or any illness, I daresay
I should have made my way to the place, whichever it is,
reserved for me— either the meeting with all that are dear
and gone or, if you will, the dreamless sleep, which alter-
natives Socrates regards even at the lowest as enviable, and
he had children and friends too. His interest in the next
world or no world had grown into such a curiosity that
nothing was so dear to him as the opportunity of satisfying
it. I can imagine too he reasoned about his children
thus : — If there were tutelar gods, these would look after
them ; if none, it mattered nothing what course they took,
only let the cock be paid to Esculapius, for that is a debt.
As I grow older I have enough of this feeling to make
me, in the possibility of death, unusually careless ; and
thus during the time I speak of I did not take a step to
change my fate, for my life has not often been a joyful
one.

I think my rides out on Sunday saved me. As I lay
out on the hillside taking my lunch and watching the
horse graze, I felt like a sponge sucking in ease and health
at every breath, and this restored me for the week. There is
a man here whom I have made into a model, and who was
a notorious highway robber. I did not know of his wild
side at first. He has become very much attached to me,
and when I want to find out-of-the-way places I take him
with me on excursions at times. He rides like a Centaur,
but with his knees up to the horse's shoulders, as all Arabs
do ; and as his old character is still accredited to him, we
strike a wholesome dread into all the country wherever
we go ; but we are very harmless, although armed to the
teeth, which is necessary since, owing to the tameness of
our present improved views of Government in England,
Englishmen are without any civil means of redress for
injuries done to them. Thieves, if caught, are kept in
hand until they or their friends pay a good bribe to the
Cady, the Pasha's secretary, and the Consul's dragoman,

VII LETTERS FROM HOLMAN HUNT 105

and then they are discharged to repay themselves by
other robberies. Just within the last three weeks a party
of Arabs, who murdered an English subject here about
fourteen years ago, have been liberated. They were
apprehended on the evidence of an eye-witness, who gave
evidence about three months past. They got off, it is
declared, at an expense of ;^200, divided between the
above-mentioned worthies. I would confer with the
Consul about it, and publish the facts in England, but I
have no time to get into another row. My correspondence
with the bishop about a certain rascal whom he was pro-
tecting sixteen years ago cost me too much time to allow
me to venture expressions of moral indignation for public
good. The gentleman in question, too, at that time tried
to murder me with his gang of housebreakers, but found
me too wary, which I might not be again against a similar
attempt. Soon after he was apprehended, sentenced to
have his right hand cut off, and to be imprisoned for life.
But last Sunday when alone I met him on the road, he
having escaped both evils by becoming convinced of the
exclusive orthodoxy of the Latin Church ! Thus he gained
the protection of the French Consul, who liberated him for
fresh villainies. He politely recognised me in passing, but
if he had thought of avenging himself thus late, he deferred
it out of respect to a double -barrel breech-loader gun
which I held slightly raised on my saddle, and which his
pistol would scarcely have been a match for.

You refer with much surprise to the idea I expressed
that I had some enemies of a less outlawry character in
England, and you prove to me that I have many friends,
which I rejoice to acknowledge. I would, however, give
you some instances on the other hand, which might serve
to raise laughter as much as grief ; yet the balance in
my account just now would be of the painful sort, so I will
not rake up the question any more.

I am sorry to believe your assurance that you are
amongst the unhappy ones of the earth. I had always re-
garded you as one who had made peace, as well as a truce,

io6 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap, vii

with life ; but the bitterness is not felt least by those who
show it least. My trust is only in the ultimate loving
goodness of the Great Father ; without this I should lose
all patience. You gave me the news of the engagement

of Miss Y . X is a lucky fellow to get such a

wife. I wonder all the unmarried men in London, with
anything approaching a Roman nose, from little Tom to big

Z , did not engage in a series of combats for her. My

crotchet is that no fellow without an aquiline profile should
marry a girl deficient thus, so I should never have engaged

in the contest. Y pere deserves no commiseration, for

I heard that when the young lady once wanted to marry

the beautiful Lord , he was not even then satisfied

with the proposed son - in - law\ My story may be all
wrong : anyhow the father was not pleased. Kind
regards to Mrs. Scott. — Yours ever,

W. HoLMAN Hunt.

CHAPTER VIII

I 868 TO 1870 ^lY R'INGS QUAIR PICTURES AT PENKILL

FINISHED — D. G. R. SPENDS AUTUMNS 1 86 8-69 THERE

^^TTH US RECOMMENCES HIS POETIC STUDIES —

THE FRANCO -GERMAN WAR MY REMOVAL TO 92

CHEYNE WALK, SEPTEMBER 1S70.

For three years or so before the summer of 1868 I
had been largely employed on the windows in the
South Kensington Keramic Gallery. Intensely-
coloured windows were found demoralising in a
museum, and will be so found, I affirm, everywhere
on a somewhat wider experience of their result in
destroying the adequate effect on the eye of all
objects seen by their light. My instruction from
Mr. Cole was to represent a pictorial history of the
Keramic arts in a medium that would obscure the
prospect through the windows, and prevent the sun-
shine being offensive, without blinding the spectator
by the violent colours of " pot-metal," as the glass-
painters call glass on which the colours are flushed
in the making. After many breakages I succeeded
in giving the designs In graffito, painted on burnt
umber ground in silica, making a true picture like

io8 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

a great etching, only partially picked out orna-
mentally in bright yellow. The long series of
windows were now finished, as also were my
staircase pictures at Penkill from James I.'s poem
The King s Qtiair.

It was now midsummer, and E^., finding D.
G. R. in a depression of mind from the idea
that his eyes were failing, prevailed upon him to
accompany me to Ayrshire for an autumn vacation.
He did so ; we were a party of four — Miss Boyd's
cousin. Miss Losh of Ravenside, being a visitor
at that time. This old lady — she was about
seventy years of age — had somehow or other
taken a jealous dislike to me, thinking I had too
much influence over her younger cousin, who en-
tertained me so much and who lived with us in
London in the winter. She had therefore looked
forward to Rossetti's appearance, fully intending
to play him off against me, which accordingly she
did in the most fantastic way, without in the least
knowing anything of the fearful skeletons in his
closet, that were every night, when the ladies had
gone, brought out for his relief and my recreation.
These skeletons, which were also made to dance
along the mountain highroad during our long walks,
would have surprised the old lady not a little.
They shall not be interviewed here, and without
them we got on pretty well, although his talk
continually turned upon his chance of blindness
and the question, why then should he live ? " Live
for your poetry," said L Strangely enough, this

D. G. ROSSETTI 109

seemed never to have occurred to him as a possible
interest or resource. Live for your poetry was
echoed by the ladies.^

We determined to follow up the suggestion, little
as we believed in the seriousness of his monomania
about blindness. One day, when Miss Boyd was
with us on a walk up Penkill Hill, we persuaded
him to recall such of his poems as he could recollect,
and he repeated The Song of the Bower, perhaps
the most perfect of all his early verses in harmony
between sound and sense, cadence and sentiment.
I understood because I knew the history of this
pagan poem ; yi3. did not, having neither heard
nor read any of his verses, except such as were
published in the Germ, or in the Oxford and
Cambridge Magazine. She could scarcely speak, so
moved she was, and I confess that I was almost
for the first time conscious of the full value of
his faculty. Lifted to a rhetorical moment I said
much, affirming that the value of his paintings
lay in their poetry, that he was a poet by birth-
right, not a painter. After this I found there was
established in his mind a new prevailing idea, able

1 [In the preface to his " Illustrations of the King's Quair,"
privately printed in 1887, Mr. Scott refers as follows to this incident :
" Miss Boyd and I found it no easy matter to change the bias of
these late years during which he had become quite successful as a
painter. Rossetti was a poet before he was a painter, and will prob-
ably retain his place as a poet when his pictures are mainly remem-
bered by their poetic suggestions in design. We recalled him so
strenuously to his early love, making him repeat the poems he re-
membered, that at last suddenly, like a dying man with a new life
transfused into his veins, he became absorbed in the desire to have
them all written out and printed." — Ed.]

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

to contend with the monomania, and when we left
for London at the end of September he had begun
to write out many of his lost poems, his memory
being so good. Many loose poems he also had
by him in manuscript, and by and by he began to
send them to the printer.

Before this return to town, however, the old
lady's admiration had culminated in an offer of a
loan of money to any amount to prevent him
using his eyes in painting or in any other trying
occupation ; he would get better and repay her,
but till then he might depend on her. This
generous offer was made one morning. He never
got up till near midday, my difficulty every evening
being to leave him after we had emptied endless
tumblers of the wine of the country in the shape
of whisky -toddy. This morning she had him all
to herself, and her daily delight was to see him
smashing his eggs on the plate, to the loss of half
of them, and making innumerable impressions of
his tea-cup on the damask table-cloth. " You see,
Alice dear," she would say to /B., "he is not
like one of us, he is a great man, can't attend to
trifles, is always occupied with great ideas 1 " so
she was often left to enjoy the sight all by herself
at that hour of the day. She intended indeed that
this plan should be a secret one between them, but
no sooner had we started on our daily constitutional
than he entrusted it to me, with much effusion and
gratitude, at the same time protesting he would never
think of availing himself of her kindness. This

D. G. ROSSETTI m

determination I strenuously encouraged, and we
heard no more of the matter until after the old
lady's death, when the evidences to the contrary
were all too clear.

Rossetti returned with me to Penkill next
summer. A great part of my occupation in the
intervening winter had been preparing my Life and
Works of Albert Dilrer, not a bad book at the
time, as, strange to say, there was no such work
previously published, even in Germany, to my
knowledge. The difficulty with me was the trans-
lation of Diirer's own letters and journal, which
were spelt phonetically and rendered archaic by
the three centuries and a half that had passed
since they were written. At that time, at Girvan,
there lived a priest who had been educated at the
Scotch (originally Irish) college at Ratisbon, so
I took my materials down, as I had done the
previous season, and he kindly assisted me. As
to Rossetti, he was more hypochondriacal than ever,
and our nightly sederunts more prolonged, so I
did not do much, and Mr. Reid, the priest in
question, had rather a holiday. Neither Aj. nor
I saw or heard anything of chloral ; we have
therefore come to the conclusion that no such
habit as that which was so injurious to him after
his severe and too real illness had then been
contracted. Miss Losh was not at Penkill that
season, so Miss Boyd sometimes drove us about
the country, instead of leaving us to take those
long walks I found so trying in the previous year.

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

One day she took us to the Lady's Glen, a romantic
ravine in which the stream falls into a black pool
round which the surrounding vertical rocks have
been worn by thousands of years of rotating flood
into a circular basin called, as many such have
been designated, the Devil's Punch-Bowl. We all
descended to the overhanging margin of the super-
incumbent rock ; but never shall I forget the ex-
pression of Gabriel's face when he bent over the
precipice peering into the unfathomed water dark
as ink, in which sundry waifs flew round and
round like lost souls in hell. In no natural
spectacle had I ever known him to take any
visible interest ; the expression on his pale face
did not indicate such interest ; it said, as both
Miss Boyd and I at the same moment interpreted
it, "One step forward and I am free!" But his
daily talk of suicide had not given him courage ;
the chance so suddenly and unexpectedly brought
within his grasp paralysed him. I advanced to
him, trembling I confess, for I could not speak.
I could not have saved him ; we were standing
on a surface, slippery as glass by the wet green
lichen. Suddenly he turned round, and put his
hand in mine, an action which showed he was
losing self-command and that fear was mastering
him. When we were safely away we all sat down
together without a word, but with faces too con-
scious of each other's thoughts.

So for that time we escaped, and after all
I did continue to be his keeper, or at least his

D. G. ROSSETTI

companion. We encountered no such danger
again, but on the very next day, I think it was,
occurred an adventure more extraordinary than
any I have ever heard of in connection with a
man writing his best poetry, painting his best
pictures, and exercising a daily shrewdness of
business habits, the wonder and admiration of all
who were in any way connected with him. The
feeble-minded English law declares the suicide to be
of unsound mind, whereas he is anything but that ;
it is the privilege of man alone, the only reasoning
suicidal creature in the world.

But the circumstance I am now to relate, in-
dicating the subversion of reason itself, it appears
to me highly desirable to place on record. It is
a problem for doctors and psychologists alike.
Mounting the ascending road towards Barr, we
observed a small bird, a chaffinch, exactly in our
path. We advanced : it did not fly but remained
quite still, continuing so till he stooped down and lifted
it. He held it in his hand : it manifested no alarm.
" What is the meaning of this ? " I heard him say to
himself, and I observed his hand was shaking with
emotion. "Oh," I said, "put the pretty creature
down again. It is strange certainly: it must be very
young, perhaps a tame one escaped from a cage."
" Nonsense ! " was his reply, still speaking sotto voce,
"you are always against me, Scott. I can tell you
what it is, it is my wife, the spirit of my wife, the
soul of her has taken this shape ; something is
going to happen to me." To this I had nothing to

VOL. II I

114 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

reply, but when we reached home in silence, by a
chance which often takes place in life, incidents of
similar kinds falling together, Miss Boyd hailed us
with the news that the household had had a surprise
— the house bell, which takes a strong pull to ring
it, had been rung, and rung by nobody ! Rossetti
inquired when this had taken place, and finding
it must have been just about the time when we
met the bird, he turned his curiously ferocious look
upon me, asking what I thought now ? — a question
as perplexing as the conviction under which he
laboured ! But I observed he did not relate the
story of the bird to Miss Boyd with the same
confidence he had shown at first, and when he saw
she was altogether averse to entertain it, he shut
up at once. Nothing more was said at the time,
but we have thought of it often since, trying in
vain to understand him/ He had brought a mass
of "proofs," and nearly every day brought him
more. But besides he was writing better than in
the earlier days : both Eden Bozvcr and Troy
Town were elaborated now. Almost every day
he would seclude himself in the glen. Here I
used to find him face to the wall lying in a shallow
cave that went by the name of a seventeenth-
century Covenanter, Bennan's Cave, working out
with much elaboration and little inspiration. The

1 [In the "Illustrations" already quoted, Mr. Scott says of Ros-
setti : " His whole nature destined him to have a tragic, not a comic
or placid background to his journey in this world. This, and his pro-
found love of, and actual faith in, the marvellous, made him not only
the dearest of friends before bad health o\ertook him, but the most
interesting of men." — Ed.]

D. G. ROSSETTI

Streams Secret. After it was done he did not
know what to call this poem, till reading-
over my series of sonnets called The Old Scotch
Ho2tse, and finding one called "The Stream's

Secret," he simply appropriated that name for his
own performance. Nothing would restrain him :
" No name in the world would suit me but that, it
expresses what I want ! " No doubt it did, but it
also expressed what I wanted to say in my sonnet,

ii6 IVILLfAM BELL SCOTT chap.

which ended the octave with the words "passing
away," and the sestet with the truth, but " never past
away."' A deadly quarrel I could not bear, so here,
as always, he had his way.

One advantage he • gained in these visits to
Penkill was a knowledge of The Kings Qiiair, i.e.
book, cahicr, or quire of paper, and an interest in
the author's death, which afterwards germinated
into The KiJigs Tragedy. Perfectly acquainted
with the early poetry of his own country, properly
so called, he knew nothing of that of this country,
and the perfectness of the scheme of The Kings
Qiiair struck him with wonder. Pity it was he
injured his Kings Tragedy by trying to quote some
verses of the original turned into octo-syllabic metre
very poorly.

My pictures, which had been finished the season
before, though painted in a wax medium, impress
me with the conviction of which Sir H. Cole was
firmly convinced, that any wall-painting in this
climate is a mistake. Part of the circular staircase
was an outer wall, part was not. The last only has
remained perfect, the picture on the outer wall had
to be partly repainted, and partly lined with sheets
of zinc.

But I must return to the story of my dear friend
D. G, R.'s poetic studies. They led him out of one
difficulty into another. Before he left us, he had
a volume in print, thin indeed and with the prose
story of his early days called Hand and Soul
inserted at the end. But what then ? He would

D. G. ROSSETTI 117

not publish. There cropped up the fear of a pubHc
ordeal of miscellaneous criticism, which had prevented
him from exhibiting his water-colour pictures, and had
shut him up exclusively in his own studio. If he
could not publish, what else would he do with the
printed poems ? Give them to his friends with a
preface as a privately printed volume ? Even for
this, considering the whole question. I could not
help agreeing with him, that the introduction of
the prose tale was an exhibition of poverty not to
be thought of. He suddenly determined to reclaim
the MS. book buried with his wife. What he
wanted most was the poem called " Jenny," written
at the same time as he painted " Found." In a few
days he was gone.

I have so repeatedly expressed my unbelief in
all the vulgar or popular forms of supernaturalism
that I feel a little hesitation in recording a circum-
stance resembling that class of things which began
the very evening after his departure. I could now
get a little peace to revise my Diirer Journal, and
my German friend Mr. Reid, who had given me
an hour, stayed to dinner. Rossetti's habit when
composing or even correcting the press, w^as to
retire after dinner to the room above, the draw-
ing-room of the old house, to read aloud to himself,
when by himself. This he did In a voice so loud
that we in the dining-room beneath could almost hear
his words. Well, as we w^ere sitting after dinner,
when he must have been approaching London in
the train, what could it be we heard .'^ The usual

ii8 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

voice reading to itself in the usual place over our
heads! I looked at JB., she was listening intently
till she could bear it no longer, and left the room.
Our learned priest found me, I fancy, to be rather
distrait, so he rose saying it was about his time, and
besides, he continued, " I hear Miss Boyd has some
friend in the drawing-room, so I won't go up. Give
her my goodbye and respects." I joined her at
once, but of course we heard nothino; in the room
itself. Such is the circumstance as it took place.
Mr. Reid, who knew nothing of the habit of D. G. R.,
hearing the voice as well as we did, although it
sounded to him like talking rather than reading,
was a sure evidence we were not deceiving our-
selves. Next night it was the same, and so it went
on till I left. When we tried to approach it was
not audible, or when the doors of the drawing-room
and its small ante-room communicating with the
staircase were left open, we could make nothing of
it. It gradually tapered off when Miss Boyd was
left by herself; by and by the whole establishment
was bolted and barred for the winter. Next season
it had entirely ceased.

I may now return to my own affairs. My
eighteen pictures from the ballad of Chevy Chase
had been finished and placed in the beginning of
1870. Previous to this the long series of windows
for the Keramic gallery, South Kensington Museum,
done \xi graffito as I called it, were nearly complete.
I determined on settling into a house of my own.

VIII THE FRANCO -GERMAN WAR 119

When we turn into the sixties, the battle of Hfe
ought to be a Httle relaxed in its severity : some
indulgence in matters of taste may be allowed. A
lovely old house close to the Chelsea end of the
picturesque old wooden bridge to Battersea, a house
built by the Adamses, with a garden buttressed up
from the river, and a studio behind to be easily
made out of a music-room, in which its first owner
indulged himself and in which Handel's organ had
stood in these former years. Early in 1870 I
arranged the purchase to be completed in November,
the requisite money being at the time invested in
Berlin Water Work shares and Egyptian Bonds,
going down shortly after in a confident frame of
mind to our usual summer months at Penkill. A
few weeks later we were driving through the town
of Girvan to the coast, to enjoy a picnic by the
multitudinous sea. What was it bringing people
on the street and making the newspaper shops so
attractive ? Suddenly as an earthquake or a West
Indian tornado, a European war had been declared
— the French army was moving towards the Rhine !
The invincible army of Austerlitz, with a Bonaparte
— happily a degenerate one — at its head. An army
of 200,000 without a button wanting on a gaiter !
In one of his letters from Jerusalem, already given
in a previous chapter, Holman Hunt spoke of this
war as then likely to sweep away the Christians
from that city. This letter was dated the loth of
August, but here the crisis was over by that time.
A few weeks later Hunt had actually to fortify

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

himself in his large house, pro\"isioned for a siege,
but here the death-grapple of Germany and France,
the mastiff and the wolf, was already loosening ;
the throat of the more savage beast was already
giving way under the irrevocable teeth of the
nobler animal. But for a moment in the east a
new complication seemed to threaten the world.
Russia made a move as if to take advantage of the
moment. It was this that had alarmed Jerusalem,
and for another hour and day my position was an
awkward one. At first my Berlin Water Work
shares went down, down to zero: anon M'Mahon's
carriages filled with ladies' attire were flying —
the French Cavalry were worth nothing. The
shares went up again day after day, till they were
at their former premium. Russia quieted down too,
and the Egyptian Bonds threatening to be unsaleable
were higher than before. The Gallic cock ceased
to crow : every mail brought greater and greater
tidings of the total discomfiture of France.

These monetary interests no doubt intensified
one's greater interest in this most rapid, most decisive,
and most important war. The concealed anxiety
of the papal party, and of all retrograde thinkers,
increased the importance of every day's news. But
without these helps the tremendous ability of Prussia,
and the overwhelming punishment of the Beau-
harnais, as Swinburne used to call Louis Napoleon,
made that autumn the most exciting in my life.
Strange to say, the majority of Englishmen were in
favour of France, although the ultimate triumph of

THE FRANCO -GERMAN WAR

Italian unity was involved, and the suppression of
papal encroachment, besides the rabid tendency of
France to indulge in conquest if it had been success-
ful. The vast mediocrity, literary or other, went in
for France. An instance of this was afforded by
Appleton, the editor and proprietor of the Academy,
in which publication the Fine Art section was under
my care at the time. The editor, who had some
pretence to learning and philosophy, sent round a
circular to his collaborateurs proposing that every
one of us should sacrifice our pay for a certain
period, allowing it to be sent over as a contribution
to the war expenses of France. I gave him a bit of
advice, my readers may be sure ! Our own battles
of life affect our sleep and our health, but this
Franco-German war was exhilarating only. Living
quietly at Penkill, I used to waylay the postman,
take the daily morning paper into the garden, and
in the summer-house read every word of the news.
On the way I passed an immense Foxglove just
beginning to bear its lowest bloom when the struggle
began. Before its last blossom was shed the crown-
ing destruction of the French army at Sedan was
over. I afterwards commemorated this in two little
poems, which I should like to reprint here in
connection with the rest of my story.

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

THE FOXGLOVE

A REMINISCENCE OF THE WAR OF 187O

I

That foxglove by the garden gate
The very day the war began
Opened its first, its lowest flower :

The post that day was late,
Anxious I waited for the man
Then went into the wild-rose bower
And heard the warning voice of fate.

Week by week, even day by day,
Another petal opened fair,
Advancing up the long light stem :

I counted them

As I passed there.
While my heart was far away.
Listening early, listening late,
To the German march — the march of Fate.

And when France lay
Quivering in the gory clay,

The topmost bell
Rang a dirge before it fell.

II

Oft throughout that deadly fight
We owned that might was right.
For from the steps of the Madeleine
Amid the trumpets' loud fanfare.
Years long ago we had seen there
Louis, triumphant from the South,
Hailed by the brutal popular mouth ;
Along the streets where late the stain
Of blood lay, did his triumph fare ;

vin SETTLEMENT AT BELLEVUE HOUSE 123

I heard the cheer ;
While many said, the day must come,
When God with us, right shall be might :
Behold ! with cannon, trump and drum.

Now was it here !

The span of time
A foxglove bloom its stalks might climb.
He passed for ever from our sight.

When I got back to London and became an
inhabitant of Chelsea, with the wide river flow-
ing before the windows, I congratulated myself on
having ably overcome one of the greatest evils of
life — the necessity of periodical house-hunting and
migration. The hermit crab had found a permanent
shell, a better one than if he had grown it. Here
was a room for my books, or two of them, and a
room for my prints — the dear early Germans and
Italians that had cost me so much trouble and
money to collect, and that had been the exciting
cause of my writing the books on Albert Dtirer and
the Little German Masters. I felt as if I too, as
well as Marshal Moltke, was having a triumph, and
I celebrated it in a sonnet, not for publication, but
as it is in a way autobiographical, it may be added
here.

ON GOING TO LIVE IN BELLEVUE HOUSE,
CHELSEA

November 1870.

Here, then, I am, to find my latest stage :
A good old home with elbow-room, I wis :
As if dame Fortune dealt her blindfold kiss

To one who had so often lost his wage,

124 WILLIAM BELL SCOT! chap.

A ruminant wandering creature, until Age

Touched him upon the shoulder, and said, " So !
Here we are, confrere, walking rather slow :

Strange your light barque should find such harbourage ! "

But sooth to say, two diligent nimble hands

Oft save wool-gathering brains from bankruptcy.

For if we daily till the common lands

That yield plain food, work out the tasks that lie

About us, serving thus the general hive,

The fates will let even a Poet thrive.

Yet, pleasant as it was to have found di point d'appui
in life, at this very moment came a circumstance to
make me contemplate returning altogether to Edin-
burgh. This was a chair of the Fine Arts being
established in Edinburgh. The number of men
combining hterary and artistic powers of any value
were so few that I was advised to offer myself for it.
The only other man who had any equal chance
was, it appeared to me, P. G. Hamerton, the clever
etcher and writer on etching, who had, however,
given up his chance of ever becoming a painter. I
got into communication with the Senatus and their
head, Sir A. Grant. I quickly came to the con-
clusion there w^as some bar in the way, and retired.

In the course of my short correspondence with
Mr. Hamerton, I received a letter which may be
worth preserving here.

Pre Charmoy, Autun, Saone et Loire,
iWiJuly 1871.

My dear Scott — During the war the postal service
was so irregular, and even unsafe, that I thought it better

p. G. HAMERTON

to keep your prints ^ along with my own papers. I send
them under a separate cover.

I am glad you have got a house to your liking at
Chelsea. I remember houses there that seemed to me
charming. You will have pleasant society within easy
reach, which I rather envy you. In country places like
this in France, although there are a few educated men,
they are always divided by social or political demarca-
tions. I had some thought of trying to found a club
here. We have men enough, but their divisions render
such a project Utopian,

I am practising just now, with great pleasure, my new
positive process in etching, of which I sent an account to
the Portfolio. I work out of doors, and see every stroke
in black on a zi'hite ground, just when I do it, which avoids
much of the deception in the old half-blind process. As
the plate is in the acid all the time I have to mind to
etch the blackest places first, and go by a careful cal-
culated gradation to the palest ; but I find that this sort
of analysis becomes easy enough by practice. When the
drawing with the etching-point is done, the plate is ready
for printing, avoiding all the old bother of stopping-out.
The new process is so agreeable that I could not go back
to the old one now ; besides, there is a great economy of
time.

During the war I saw a battle from my study window,
about 5000 men engaged on each side. I had a good
telescope, and saw the men plainly enough. The cannon-
ade went on from 2 P.M. till nightfall, and afterwards
began again in the moonlight. We should have had the
Prussians at our house most probably, if we had not been
protected by a stream which was rather swollen, so they
thought they could not cross it without leaving some of

1 What the prints were that P. G. H. mentions in his letter I
cannot now remember. My Collection, after having been very useful,
ceased to retain their interest, and I sold them to a gentleman who
promised to keep them together, but who last year brought them to
the hammer at Sotheby's, July 18S5. They brought /^i 260. I insert
this note, September 1886.

126 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap, viii

their artillery in the mud. W'e were considerably anxious
of course, but next day the Prussians retired. The only
evil that has occurred to me during the war was a fort-
night's illness brought on by an imprudence. On a very
cold day in winter, acting as guide to a lot of Garibaldian
cavalry, I had to lead them through a flooded river. I
had the icy water up to my saddle-seat, and rode after-
wards for several hours in wet clothes. The mortality in
the (French) army here was terrible during the severity of
the winter — I remain, yours very truly,

P. G. H.

CHAPTER IX

LETTERS FROM D. G. ROSSETTI, AUTUMN 187 1, AT
KELMSCOTT ON HIS OWN POETRY THEN IN PRO-
GRESS ALSO ON MINE.

When D. G. Rossetti left us at Penkill, and re-
covered his buried MS. volume, he at once aban-
doned the Privately Printed volume he had already
printed, which only exists since in two or at most
three copies. The only really important poem
recovered, except such as he had remembered, was
" Jenny," which had its origin contemporaneously
with the design for the promised etching to illustrate
my poem first called " Rosabell," The two works had
their origin together, when he visited me first in
Newcastle, when I was in the act of arranging my
first miscellaneous little volume sometimes called
Poems by a Painter. However suggested, it was
years on the anvil, and at last had a daring circum-
stance included in its story, which some friends
tried in vain to get altered. "Jenny" bears the
evidence of its derivation by being the only poem
D. G. R. wrote on the morals or the period of our
own day, and is really, notwithstanding its confes-

128 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

sional character, one of the ablest of all his poems,
even to the end of his life. The others,^ such as
" Dante at Verona," " A Last Confession," are com-
paratively boyish and worthless, except, indeed,
"Sister Helen," which he held in memory and
afterwards improved. However, he included all.

On the very successful reception of the volume
by the public, his hypochondria about his eyes disap-
peared, along with the nervous fear about publishing.
Still, however, he to the last moment would work
the oracle, and get all his friends to prepare laudatory
critical articles to fill all the leading journals.' Against
this he would take no advice. His brother especially
offered him the wisest and kindest counsel. " I often
sadly reflect," as he said afterwards, "that I used to
urge Gabriel not to go diplomatising (as I got to
call it) to have his book reviewed in various papers
by friends and henchmen, and that if he had taken
this advice the soreness of outsiders would have
been avoided." How much reason had we all to
wish he had denied himself " the jubilant proclama-
tion of the merits of his poems." And yet who can
say ? No one could predict the effect adverse

1 [Mr. Scott is speaking here of the poems recovered from ]\Irs.
Rossetti's grave, and not contained in the privately printed volume,
but included in the printed and published volume which was issued
in 1870.— Ed.]

- [A reader who should come upon this passage without knowing
the strength and constancy of the autobiographer's friendship for
Rossetti and admiration of his powers, might suspect him here of
ill-naturedly disparaging his friend. This would be entirely to mis-
take the spirit of the record, which is intended only to illustrate that
morbid fear of criticism which was so paradoxical and so disastrous
an element in Rossetti's character. — Ed.]

D. G. ROSSETTI 129

criticism had upon him when it came ; it was the
morbid feehng in his own mind that made him work
heaven and earth to render it impossible, as he
thought, that such should reach him ; and the very
first, I should say the only, powerful attack upon his
book knocked him over like the blow of the butcher's
axe on the forehead of the ox. He had felt that such
would be the effect of severe strictures, and feared
them, else why the reluctance to publish, the desire
to issue his privately printed volume when we had
prevailed upon him to take up poetry again, and
why the disagreeable expenditure of energy in work-
ing the oracle, to furnish all the ordinary channels
of criticism with articles ready made under his own
eye ? The question is exactly similar to that of the
habit and effect of the chloral he took, I had
known him too lonof to believe it had much to do
with either the mental or bodily peculiarities from
which he latterly suffered. I asked Professor
Marshall, his medical adviser, and his answer was
that the chloral was merely a desperate attempt to
cure his evils, not the cause of them. As to the
article that troubled him so deeply, perhaps his
anxiety to forestall criticism brought it upon him.
The critic is the natural enemy of the poet, Gautier
has said in a way sufficiently amusing though un-
quotable here, and critics who are themselves
" literary poets " are the worst disposed of all.

Meantime, however, he was in excellent spirits,
and an almost daily correspondence began to pass
between us. I have none of my own letters, and

VOL. II K

I30 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

never had the habit of copying them, but all his are
with me still and deserve to be carefully printed,
showing as they do the careful reconsideration he
gave his poems.

Morris had at that time lighted upon a lovely
ancient manor house, not the house of seven gables,
but often, to be let near Lechlade. It was a house
lying low, and sometimes surrounded by floods : the
rooms, many and irregular ; the kitchens and sitting-
rooms on the entrance floor, being lower than the
ground outside, were not always safe from the
inundation. Among the larger apartments above
(the house properly speaking) was one hung with
tapestry, the later tapestry with life-sized figures in
Roman costume. This Rossetti, who joined for a
time with Morris in renting the house, tried to make
a studio, but found the draughts unbearable, the
hanging waving about on all sides, making the
room like a house attacked by vertigo. The first of
the following letters was written shortly after he
went thither, to me, then living at Penkill, a dwelling
as thoroughly Scottish as Kelmscott was English,
only of a century later.

D. G. R. to W. B. S. (I.)

The Manor House, Kelmscott,
Lechlade, ijihjuly 1S71.

Dear Scotus — You see I write to you among sur-
roundings new to me, but of such an old fashion in them-
selves that it is easy to identify one's own sense of use
and habit with them, and to believe one has always known
them. This is a wonderful old place which you must

IX D. G. R:S letters from KELMSCOTT 131

some day see, and of which I must get photos taken when
I can, but photography is, I should think, unknown as
yet in Kelmscott. The house and garden, with all their
riverside fields and sleepy farm -buildings, make up a
delicious picture to the eye and mind, and afford so much
home variety that there is no need of seeking farther.
When one does so, however, one is bound to confess that
the country roads possess little interest, being so extremely
flat that they may almost be said to present no objects at
all ; and the solitude is as absolute as at Penkill, but not
nearly so impressive in its natural features. I am writing
in my delightful sitting-room or studio, the walls of which
are hung with tapestries which I suppose have been here
since the house was built (by the same family who have
only just left it). The subject of the tapestries is the
history of Samson, which is carried through with that un-
compromising uncomfortableness peculiar to this class of
art manufacture. Indeed, I have come to the conclusion
that a tapestried room should always be much dimmer
than this one. These things constantly obtruded on one
in a bright light become a persecution. However, it won't
do to take them down, as they might get moth-eaten, and
heaven knows what their value may not be in the eyes
of their owners. We have got plenty of things into the
house, and even a moderate amount of order by this time —
Janey [Mrs. W. Morris] has been taking five and six mile
walks without the least difficulty, and her children are the
most darling little self-amusing machines that ever existed.
The nearest town to this is Lechlade, some three miles
off, a beautiful old place and not a station. I expect to
be here for two months at least, though I may perhaps run
back to London midway for a day or so to see what is
doing in my studio, where a radical cure is to be effected
in the light during my absence under Webb's directions,
after which I shall have as good a studio as any one, I
hope. I shall make a replica I have to do while here,
and make some drawings besides, I hope. Whether
writing will come of it I cannot yet tell. The weather is

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

warm and genial at last here, and the same I hope with
you. Have you really got Miss Losh at Penkill ? Will
you give my love to her (if there), as well as to Miss
Boyd ; and tell me whatever is to tell between one " haunt
of ancient peace " and another. We have fallen back on
Shakspeare here as at Penkill in the evenings, and are
" doing " him religiously, sometimes indoors and some-
times out. A pretty fair supply of books has been got
into the place, and the children, who are indefatigable
readers, read about a volume of the Waverley Novels a
day. Little May, the youngest, seems lovelier every day.
I shall make drawings of both while I stay here — Allan
and Emma [husband and wife, servants from London
house] have come down with me ; and we have besides
the children's nurse and two native retainers. The garden
is full of fat cut hedges that seem to purr and simmer in
the sun, as do the farm buildings also on all sides. We
shall have erelong to keep a trap of some sort as well as
a cow and pig. Does Miss Boyd, I wonder, know any-
where of a highly desirable i\yrshire cow to be had ? I
am told that race is in demand, but the only question is
whether the carriage would very vastly add to the expense.
Otherwise the advantages of friendly selection out there,
and security against cheating, would be good gains. — Do
write to your affectionate D. Gabriel R.

P.S. — I suppose you know that mamma and Christina
are at Hampstead.

In this first letter there seems nothing calHng for
any notice. The cov^ question opened up corre-
spondence, which does not demand record here,
although it filled many pages till it was found im-
practicable.

D. G. R. to W. B. S. (II.)

Kelmscott, Lechlade,

lVed)iesday.

Dearest Scotus — Your letter was very welcome,
but did not reach me till to-day. However, let me go in

IX D. G. R:S letters from KELMSCOTT 133

at once for another, which I hope will not be so long on
the way.

I send you a little ballad or song or something made
in a punt on the river — not a very poetic style of locomo-
tion. It's rather out of my usual way, rude aiming at the
sort of popular view that Tennyson perhaps alone succeeds
in taking. Not (I hope) that it's at all chargeable with
imitation of Tennyson, but I mean that nobody but he
tries to get within hail of general readers. But I fear,
however much I might like to do so, that it's not my
vocation except in such a trifle as this once in a way ;
and I daresay this would be voted obscure. I fancy it
ought to be suited for music.

I have discovered some nice riverside walks now the
floods have subsided, and there is a funny little island
midway in one walk, which can be reached by a crazy
bridge, and does very well as a half-way house to commit
sonnets to paper going and coming. It may perhaps lead
to further effusions. I got one sonnet out of it to-day.
I daresay I shall get a fair stroke of painting w^ork done
here, as I have had all my things sent down together,
with that picture of " Beatrice " to make a replica, and
am also at work on a drawing for a small picture I mean
to paint here to fit a beautiful old frame I have.

I also mean to make drawings of the children. The
younger, Mary, is quite a beauty the more one knows her,
and will be a lovely woman. She is very clever too, I
think, and has a real turn for drawing when she gets a
little less lazy. The older one buries herself in books,
but is not so observant as the younger.

I got the Academy to-day, with an article on a German
Diirerite, which smacks of the rival adept, though not
unfair certainly. I shall want to see your article in
Frasei', and must get the Portfolio, which I suppose is out
now, containing that on Blake. I am extremely sorry to
hear of Wallis's attack with his eyes, but seeing how
completely he got over the first, I cannot suppose these
attacks to be really dangerous in the worst sense. It is

134 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

almost a pity he did not go with Top to Iceland. No
news of the latter yet, though expected before this. I
had a letter from Stillman, very loud of course in pro-
claiming his wife's enchantment with America and all
American people and things. They are coming back, he
says, this month by sailing-ship. I suppose you heard of
their dreadful passage out.

I'm afraid I shan't do much poetry here, as my walks
are seldom taken alone, Janey having developed a most
triumphant pedestrian faculty ; licks you hollow, I can
tell you. We are doing a good deal in papering and
painting here, as well as other repairs. So time does not
run to seed.

If I were at Penkill I know, as you say, that I should
do something decided in poetry — to wit, " The Orchard
Pits " poem, which I much want to do ; but I find it
almost impossible to write narrative poetry in scenery
that does not help it, and so have little chance of setting
to that here.

I was sorry to hear that you had not Miss Losh with
you, and hope her health is not the cause of her being
unable to join you.

How intensely stupid it was of me when I wrote
before to forget that Letitia was with you now. I can
only account for it by the fact that I was never at Penkill
while she was there. Janey's love to her, and mine to
all. — Ever your affectionate D. G. R.

THE RIVER'S RECORD

Between Holmscote and Hurstcote

The river-reaches wind,
The whispering trees accept the breeze.

The ripple 's cool and kind :
With love low-whispered 'twixt the shores,

With rippling laughters gay,
With white arms bared to ply the oars,

On last vear's first of Mav.

IX D. G. r:s letters from KELMSCOTT 135

Between Holmscote and Hurstcote

The river 's brimmed with rain,
Through close-met banks and parted banks,

Now near, now far again :
With parting tears caressed to smiles.

With meeting promised soon,
With every sweet vow that beguiles,

On last year's first of June.

Between Holmscote and Hurstcote

The river 's flecked with foam,
'Neath shuddering clouds that hang in shrouds

And lost winds wild for home :
With infant wailings at the breast.

With homeless steps astray,
With wanderings shuddering tow'rds one rest,

On this year's first of May.

Between Holmscote and Hurstcote

The summer river flows
With doubled flight of moons by night,

And lilies' deep repose :
With lo ! beneath the moon's white stare

A white face not the moon,
With lilies meshed in tangled hair

On this year's first of June.

Between Holmscote and Hurstcote

A troth was given and riven ;
From heart's trust grew one life to two.

Two lost lives cry to Heaven :
With banks spread calm beneath the sky.

With meadows newly mowed,
The harvest paths of glad July,

The sweet school-children's road.

KeLMSCOTT, ////>' I 87 1.

The poem here given, " Between Holmscote and
Hurstcote," or " The River's Record," I now forget

136 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

what I said of. It was not in D. G. R.'s way, as he
says, but still has its good qualities.

D. G. R. toW. B. S. (III.)

Kelmscott, Lfxhlade,
2nd Align st 1871.

Dear Scotus — Your verdict on my popular rhymes
is more favourable than I looked for ; but I fear I have
no more the popular element than yourself

Did I, in the fourth line of verse one, fail to put apos-
trophe in " ripples " ? I don't otherwise see why you
consider the line " isolated " in character. " Cool " resulted
from experience, while writing of the impression produced.
As to the repetition of rippling, this seems necessary, as
you will observe that two epithets are interchanged in
each stanza between the landscape and the emotion. I've
no doubt your objection to the title is vaHd, though I sup-
pose I meant A record of the river. Would " May and
June " be better ? So I called it at first, but this seemed
hardly incisive enough.^

Your sorrows in connection with that infernal word
" quaint " recall my own. Only quite lately I had it re-
vived by a friendly critic on my work, though a lapse of
years had occurred since I last heard it in such relation,
and I had hoped it and I had parted company. However,
it will be " in at the death " with both of us. Good God,
I cannot see the faintest trace of this adjective in either
of your etchings which you mention, nor in the design of
your mantelpiece (the carrying out I have not seen) in
any objectionable sense, though I suppose, so far as it
differs from other mantelpieces, it might be described as
peculiar, if that is one meaning of the hellish " quaint."

By the bye, on this point I have always meant, and
always forgotten, to ask you if you noticed an astounding
controversy raised in Notes and Queries about a wretched
little daub of mine called " Greensleeves." Bad the thing

1 [The title finally adopted was " Down Stream." — Ed.]

IX D. G. R.'S LETTERS FROM KELMSCOTT 137

is, probably enough ; but how it should suggest to any
human mind the maniacal farrago conjured up in these
letters is incomprehensible, except as revealing to one the
degree to which the world considers oneself insane. On
reading them my brain whirled, and I sent to Agnew for
the thing, to see if it bore any internal explanation with
it. It seemed a poor daub when examined, but certainly
innocent of the special enormities charged to it. However,
once having laid hands on it, I gave it a good daub-
ing all over, and transmogrified it so completely (title and
all) as to separate it for ever, I hope, from this Bedlam cor-
respondence, which, by the bye, I find revived this week —
to end God knows when or where !

I hope you get Notes and Queries regularly, as by my
directions. If you don't, I'll see to the posting myself

And now, Scotus, you may just return the compliment
by posting to me the Frascr and Portfolio with your
articles (if you have them by you), as otherwise I shall go
to the expense for them, which you counsel me not to
incur.

I am getting to work now, both on the replica of
" Beatrice " (Cowper Temple's picture, which I borrowed
and have here) ; on a small picture to fit a beautiful old
frame I have, and to which I mean to put a view of the
winding river for background ; and on the drawings of
the children.

A little sonnet-writing gets done too, and a ballad —
of the Sister Helen kind rather — is floating paperwards
on a slow brain-breeze enough. I wrote an Italian song
the other day ! But I do a deal of making up in my head
before I put pen to paper.

It would really give me great pleasure to see that dear
old barn which has been the bounding of so many pleasant
walks and talks embodied in a picture of yours, and I
really hope you'll do it, as it is just the sort of material
which half does a picture to one's hand.

Midway with this letter, Janey shows me at last one
from Top, who writes from some unpronounceable place

138 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

in Iceland, and seems to have had much pleasurable ex-
perience already, though nothing much to report at second
hand, except the delightful fact that a packet from the
co-operative stores, opened eagerly for table delicacies, was
found to contain Floriline and violet powder. However,
I judge it was the only one, or it would not serve Top for
an epistolary horse-laugh. An Iceland paper also came, in
which the arrival of the travellers is reported. Top being
described as a " Skald." He ought to go by no other
name for the future, and " The Bard " be reserved for
Swinburne.

Browning's poem, Balaiistion^s Adventure, looks
alarming beforehand. I have written to have it sent me
when out, which will not be till the 8th. I see what it
all means : B. has been inveighing all his life against
translations (when I sent him my Italian Poets, I re-
member he never answered at all !), and now having by
some accident slipped a translation of Alcestis, he had to
look about for a consistent plan for putting it into print,
and has hit on this alarming scheme. However, no doubt
there will be plenty to admire and enjoy. Browning seems
likely to remain, with all his sins, the most original and
varied mind, by long odds, which betakes itself to poetry
in our time.

Brown and family, with Hiiffer and Miss Blind, are, as
perhaps you know, at Lj'nmouth, where Miss B. has un-
earthed an old woman who knew Shelley and Harriet
when they were staying there. I may as well enclose you
a letter of B.'s giving some particulars on this curious
matter, though indeed it will swell this epistle to a most
portentous size. By the bye, you might send me your
International Report if you have it. I see the Academy
Journal is a very dry stick this time.

What you tell me of Allingham is no worse than I am
myself, so I mustn't wonder. I cannot sleep, except at
the back of my house, for the noise, and require all sorts
of usualnesses all round me to make life possible. Alas
for flying years ! One wonders if one was always so, and

IX D. G. r:s letters from KELMSCOTT 139

is reminded how far one is looking back by the difficulty
of remembering. — Ever yours, and Miss Boyd's and
Letitia's, if still with you, affectionately,

D. G. R.

I cannot recollect what the strange writing in
Notes and Queries that troubled him so was. The
Fraser and the Po7'tfolio he wanted, with articles
of mine, I duly sent him, I think he mentions
them ao^ain. The International I also sent him.
The article by me was one of the critical articles
published as separate pamphlets, written by various
selected people, on the great International Ex-
hibition that year.

At the end of the letter the mention of
Allingham was called forth by his taking the
friendly offer of my house at Chelsea while my
wife and I were in the North. He [A.] could not
sleep in the bedroom he occupied ; it was too near
the street, and the occasional noise of passers-by
was too much noise for him. This brings out a
similar confession from D. G. R, as to his sleep-
lessness. This, written in August 187 1, is the
earliest allusion to the sleeplessness, etc., so severely
felt by him after his return to town and severe
illness at the end of this year.

The letter about Mrs. Blackmore, the old
woman who had had Shelley and Harriet lodging
in her house (or friend's house) at Lynmouth,
contains nothing of any importance to make it
worth preservation. Shelley lived a long time
there, and as in every place where accidental

I40 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

record is found of his having stayed, he left without
paying up, so there still remained an unpaid balance.
They used to play about like children, Mrs. Black-
more with them. . . . After reading every word
in Dowden's immense life, I believe it will at last
be found that his dislike to Harriet beean when
she had begun to treat with laughter his folly in
thinking to reform the world with his paper-boats
and fire-balloons.

D. G. R. to W. B. S. (IV.)

COMMANDMENTS

Let no man ask you of anything
Not yearborn between Spring and Spring.
More of all worlds than he can know
Each day the single sun doth show :
A trustier gloss than you can give
From all wise scrolls demonstrative,
The sea doth sigh and the wind sing.

Let no lord awe you on any height
Of earthly kingship's mouldering might.
The dust his heel holds meet for your brow
Has all of it been what both are now :
And he and you may plague together
A beggar's eyes in some dusty weather
When none that is now knows sound or sight.

Let no priest tell you of any home

Unseen above the sky's blue dome.

To have played in childhood by the sea,

Or to have been young in Italy,

Or anywhere in the sun or rain ;

To have loved and been beloved again,

Is nearer Heaven than he can come.

D. G. R:S letters from KELMSCOTT 141

SUNSET WINGS

To-night this sunset spreads two golden wings

Cleaving the western sky ;
Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings
Of birds ; as if the day's last hour in rings

Of strenuous flight must die.

Sun-steeped in fire, the homeward pinions sway

Above the dovecote-tops ;
And clouds of starlings, ere they rest with day,
Sink, clamorous like mill-waters at wild play

By turns in every copse :

Each tree heart-deep the wrangling rout receives,

Save for the whirr within,
You could not tell the starlings from the leaves ;
Then one great puff of wings, and the swarm heaves

Away with all its din —

Even thus Hope's hours, in ever-eddying flight,

To many a refuge tend :
With the first light she laughed, and the last light
Glows round her still ; who natheless in the night

At length must make an end.

And now the mustering rooks innumerable

Together sail and soar,
While for the day's death, like a tolling knell,
Unto the heart they seem to cry farewell,

No more, farewell, no more !

Is Hope not plumed, as 'twere a fiery dart ?

Therefore, O dying day.
Even as thou goest must she too depart.
And sorrow fold such pinions on the heart

As will not fly away ?

142 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

These two poems came without commentary.
They have fine things in them, but are imperfect.
He says in another letter he has now thirty new
sonnets to add to the House of Life, since printing
last year, I had just published a Christmas book
on Beloian Art, and he wishes to see it. He sends
"Through Death to Love," "The Lover's Walk,"
"The Dark Glass," and " Heart's Haven," also the
first version of " Cloud Confines."

D. G. R. to W. B. S. (V.)

Kelmscott, \ith Azigitst '71.

Dearest Scotus — I send back the Fraser and the
Kensington papers. The first contains in your article an
exhaustive summary, sure to be very valuable one day, of
this year's art, which, owing to continental events, has
assumed in England a very unusual aspect. It was a
much better plan to do this than to retrace the circle of
the Academy walls.

Your own paper among the Reports is of course solid
good work, and Pollen's shows signs of something besides
amateurishness. The others that I have looked at are
mere pretentious vapouring, such as in England floats
uppermost in all enterprises.

I have sent you two missives within the last day or
two — first, a poem not long but meant to deal with
important matters, and second. Browning's new book, of
an extremely irritating structure — it is so absolutely every-
thing that Greek ideas are not. Still there is much good
w^ork, and even pure simple diction in the translated part,
and Browning is too great a man already to make it
matter much what one thinks of a leisure work like this.

I ordered and got the last Portfolio and find to my
vexation that Blake's Flea, etc., must have been in the
July one. I don't know whether I shall try again now —

IX D. G. R:S letters from KELM SCOTT 143

it is so provoking. I just this minute ask Emma about
N. and Q. She says they have gone to you regularly,
the only one in the house now being to-day's. This
seems strange. It would really be worth your while one
day, if you keep iV. and Q., to look back at the first
of these Greensleeves letters ; it would enlarge your ideas
as to the gaping astonishment and perverse misconstruc-
tion of which we were writing lately. As my name was
in the heading, I wonder it did not catch your eye.

I send you another little poem (done from nature)
with this, and may perhaps soon muster energy to copy a
few sonnets, only they seem such lackadaisical things
to send about. I have now thirty new ones in MS. for
the House of Life since printing last year ; I suppose
several of the last must have been unseen by you. I
should like greatly to see what you have written on the
Belgians. Pray send it. I hope, being clear of it now,
you will at any rate find some sonnets lurking in you,
and, above all, collect and print your poetry ere long. Do
you see the AtJiencemn gossip, about my intentions this
week ? Who ever conceives and then condenses such
inventions ? I saw the paragraph about my father, and
had heard of the matter before at home. My own view
was quite yours — viz, that it ought to be done ; but I
know nothing w^ould induce my mother to consent.
fThis was the removal of his father's remains to Italy.]

It appears from something I see written by Knight
that there has been a very obtuse review of Swinburne
in the Edinburgh — done, I suppose, by the same puny
Scotch hand which scribbled about Morris lately.

I am quite rejoiced to hear of Wallis's improvement
and pedestrian labours. It would be a real treat to
witness his first enjoyment of the beautiful glen. Pray
give him my love, and say how much I wish (if one could
be in two places at once) that I were making a fourth
stroller in the shelter of the glen slopes (hardly, however,
with much water-noise in one's ears now) from the sudden
heats we have come in for.

144 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

This place needs no Sunday to quiet it, so that I only
identify the day by the trouble of having to send to the
town for letters and papers. I am getting used a little
now to the tapestry, though still the questions, Why a
Philistine leader should have a panther's tail, or Delilah a
spike sticking out of her head, or what Samson, standing
over a heap of slain, has done with the ass's jaw-bone,
will obtrude themselves at times between more abstract
speculations. I have nearly finished my replica, which has
gone wonderfully quick, and am getting on with the little
picture with river background.

I suppose if Wallis is at all in working trim he will
be sure to have an easel up in the glen before long, and
you will not be behindhand with another, I should say.
Here we read Shakspcare and Plutarch just as the first
builders of the house might have done, and are on the
whole Elizabethan enough. By the bye, there is one
subject in Plutarch not done by Shakspeare and quite
worthy of him — Pompey the Great, Some one should yet
go in for it as a play. — With love, ever yours, D. G. R.

THROUGH DEATH TO LOVE

Like labour-laden moon-clouds faint to flee

From winds that sweep the winter-bitten wold, —
Like multiform circumfluence manifold

Of night's flood-tide, — like terrors that agree

Of fire dumb-tongued and inarticulate sea, —

Even such, within some glass dimmed by our breath,
Our hearts discern wild images of Death,

Shadows and shoals that edge eternity.

Howbeit athwart Death's imminent shade doth soar
One Power than flow of stream or flight of dove,
Sweeter to glide around, to brood above.
Tell me, my heart, — what angle-greeted door
Or threshold of wing-winnowed threshing-floor

Hath guest fire-fledged as thine, whose lord is love ?

D. G. R:S letters from KELMSCOTT 145

THE LOVERS' WALK

Sweet twining hedge-flowers wind-stirred in no wise
On this June day ; and hand that ch'ngs in hand : —
Still glades ; and meeting faces scarcely fanned : —

An osier-odoured stream that draws the skies

Deep to its heart ; and mirrored eyes in eyes : —
Fresh hourly wonder o'er the summer land
Of light and cloud ; and two souls softly spanned

With one o'erarching heaven of smiles and sighs : —

Even such their path, whose bodies lean unto
Each other's visible sweetness amorousl}-, —
W^hose passionate hearts lean by Love's high decree

Together on his heart for ever true,

As the white-foaming firmamental blue
Rests on the blue line of a foamless sea.

THE DARK GLASS

Not I myself know all my love for thee :

How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh
To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday ?

Shall birth, and death, and all dark voids that be

As doors and windows bared to some loud sea,

Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray ;
And shall my sense pierce love, — the last relay

And ultimate outpost of eternity ?

Lo ! what am I to Love, the Lord of all ?

One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand, —
One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand.

Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call

And veriest touch of powers primordial
That any hour-girt life may understand.

VOL. II L

146 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

HEART'S HAVEN

Sometimes she is a child within mine arms,

Cowering beneath dark wings that love must chase ;

With still tears showering and averted face,
Inexplicably filled with faint alarms :
And oft from mine own spirit's hurtling harms

I crave the refuge of her deep embrace, —

Against all ill the fortified strong place
And sweet reserve of sovereign counter-charms.

And Love, our light at night and shade at noon,
Lulls us to rest with songs, and turns away
All shafts of shelterless, tumultuous day.

Like the moon's growth, his face gleams through his tune

And as soft waters warble to the moon.

Our answering kisses chime one roundelay.

THE CLOUD CONFLNES

The day is dark and the night

To him that would search the heart ;
No lips of cloud that will part
Nor morning song in the light.
Only, gazing alone.
To him wild shadows are shown.
Deep under deep unknown,
And height above unknown height.
Still we say as we go, —

" Strange to think by the way.
Whatever there is to know.

That shall we know one day."

The Past is over and fled ;

Named new, we name it the old ;

Thereof some tale hath been told.
But no word comes from the dead ;

D. G. R:S letters from K elm SCOTT 147

Whether at all they be,
Or whether as bond or free,
Or whether they too were we,
Or by what spell they have sped.
Still we say as we ,go, —

" Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know.

That shall we know one day."

What of the heart of hate

That beats in thy breast, O Time ? —
Red strife from the furthest prime
And anguish of fierce debate ;
War that shatters her slain,
And peace that grinds them as grain,
And eyes fixed ever in vain
On the pitiless eyes of Fate.
Still we say as we go, —

" Strange to think by the way.
Whatever there is to know,

That shall we know one day."

What of the heart of love

That bleeds in thy breast, O man ? —
Thy kisses snatched 'neath the ban
Of fangs that mock them above ;
Thy bells prolonged unto knells.
Thy hope that a breath dispels,
Thy bitter, forlorn farewells.
And the empty echoes thereof
Still we say as we go, —

" Strange to think by the way.
Whatever there is to know.
That shall we know one day."

The sky leans dumb on the sea

Aweary with all its wings ;

And oh ! the song the sea sings
Is dark everlastingly.

148 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

Our past is clean forgot,
Our present is and is not,
Our future's a sealed seed-plot,
And what betwixt them are we ?
Atoms that nought can sever

From one world-circling will, —
To throb at its heart for ever,
Yet never to know it still.
c)tk Aitgtist 1 87 1.

I must have been long in answering, for his
next missive is nothing but this —

There's a Scotch correspondent named Scott
Thinks a penny for postage a lot ;

Books, verses, and letters

Too good for his betters
Cannot screw out an answer from Scott.

To this I answered —

It was not the penny or groat

That stuck in the Scotchman's throat ;

But, faith, he did lack

Nutcrackers to crack
Verses set his weak jaw on the rack.

[It would appear from the next letter in the
series that a lonsf letter about the said verses
from the " Scotch correspondent " was on its way
when the impatient remonstrance was penned. — Ed.]

D. G. R. to W. B. S. (VI.)

KeLMSCOTT, 2i)th August 1 87 1.

Dearest W. B. — I will generously consider our court
of minstrelsy or bardic contest as closed with }'Our re-
joinder. I suppose }-ou understood mine to have been

IX D. G. R:S letters from KELMSCOTT 149

written and sent before receipt of your later communica-
tions.

I may as well enclose the cutting from Siinday Times,
though I suppose you have most likely seen it, and it is
hardly an exhaustive treatment of the subject.

Many thanks for the Blake paper, which is full of
interest. B.'s view about the flea is a muddle as far as
expressed. One would suppose the figure, seen as you
say, to be a sort of generic Eidolon of flea-hood, were
it not for what the spectre is made to say of " I myself"
as an individual. Perhaps it is not rightly reported by
Varley. The etching is a valuable addition to Blake
records, but I am uncertain whether you have rendered
Milton's wife quite exactly. In yours there seems to
me a certain soup con of Miss Boyd ! Can you or she see
it ? Perhaps, however, this may exist in the original (if
indeed in yours), though I did not notice it.

I have read your Belgian book and find it thoroughly
readable either for artist or layman. Your article on
Leys takes, I think, quite the true view and is equal to
its important theme. However, I am not sure that you
dwell quite strongly enough on the fascination which L.'s
intensity as antiquarian and colourist gives him even to
the most ideal class of poetic minds, though, as you say,
it be quite questionable whether there were any absolute
poetry in his springs of action. I think you give Tadema
his full dues, though perhaps not more. However, to
many dii Minores I think you are far too lenient, having,
I fancy, a leaning towards Belgians because at any rate
they are not Frenchmen. Your placing Portaels by the
side of Delaroche seems to me something like treason, I
must say, and to me the leading and crying characteristic
of Mr. Van Lerius is such wretched badness that tJiat not
being first executed, critique of such minor merits as he
may possess appears irrelevant. I fancy some of the
best Belgians are unrepresented with you, but might at
least have been referred to. There is a family of De
Brackeleer, one member, at least, of which is quite a

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

remarkable realistic colourist and character -painter, and
the late International contained a landscape b}' Lamor-
iniere which struck me, on a rather cursory glance, as
the only good Belgian picture there. Lastly, I am much
concerned to find that you have alluded in no way what-
ever to Wiertz, whose works I never saw (with one large
exception quite noteworth)- enough to increase curiosity),
but who, I am sure, must have been the greatest mental
genius (except Lego in his very different walk) whom
they have had yet. Your power of treating a critical
subject lightly and yet thoroughly is as evident here as
in the French volume. I am rather sorry, by the bye,
that you have stated so positivel}- that the death of Leys
resulted from his alarm during a thunderstorm. I have
heard this point spoken of by several who knew him and
do not think it seems so certain, while it is a painful
association one would wish away if possible.

I am very sorry I did not send the Frascr and other
papers before Wallis left you, but had stupidly forgotten
that such was your motive in wishing their speedy return.
Another happy man, after all, seems to be Allingham, for
all his want of " success." Nothing but the most absolute
calm and enjoyment of outside nature could account for
so much gadding hither and thither on the soles of his
tw^o feet. Fancy carrying about grasses for hours and
days from the field where Burns ploughed up a daisy.
Good God ! if I found the dais}' itself there, I would
sooner swallow it than be troubled to carry it twenty
yards.

In what you say of my sonnets I agree absolutely
as to principles and partially as to application. For
instance, I quite think with you that the two sonnets you
prefer are better than the other two for the reason given ;
and I hardly ever do produce a sonnet except on some
basis of special momentary emotion ; but I think there
is another class admissible also — and that is the only
other I practise, viz. the class depending on a line or
two clearly given you, you know not whence, and calling

IX D. G. R:S letters from KELMSCOTT 151

up a sequence of ideas. This also is a just raison d'etre
for a sonnet, and such are all mine when they do not in
some sense belong to the " occasional " class. However,
I cannot at all perceive that I have a habit of using
images a second time, and think that any impression to
that effect must result from hardly making due allowance
for the general theme of the series. I do not know
where you would find an instance in point, certainl}' it
does not seem to me that there is any more than a
generic likeness between the two called " The Dark Glass,"
" Through Death to Love," or any likeness in either to
any sonnet previously written by me. Certainly there
is a reference in both to love and death, but the keynote
of one " Not I myself," etc., is a very special and
quite individual theme, and I cannot see that the word
" Glass " occurring in the title of the one and the body
of the other is worth thinking about. What possible
resemblance there can be between either of the other
two and any former sonnet of mine I cannot conceive,
though you seem to include these partially, if not so
strongly, in the same objection. Moreover, Scotus, some
of your verbal cruees remain quite dark to me. What
particular fault can be found in the line " All shafts of
shelterless, tumultuous day " I endeavour to trace but
fail entirely ; also to discover the weak point in the
last word of " Cloud confines," which is " still." Can
it be that you think it might seem ambiguous with its
synonym meaning qtizetl Surely not. Your remarks
on the sunset poem baffled me too — moreover I seem
to trace in the charge of being "fantastic" a covert form of
the insidious " quaint." There, Scotus ! ! As for " Com-
mandments," the three verses came into my head during
a walk, and I think of carrying it further probably, only
such like verses do not interest me much. I wish I
could get some serious verse-writing done here, but begin
to see that I shall not. In fact I cannot carry it on
with painting to do also, at any rate not unless I am
quite alone ; and I had some painting task -work to do,

152 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

and have set about a little not task-work also ; and these
have kept me from the other Muse, who, I believe, after
all is my true mistress. I am painting a little portrait
of Janey for a beautiful old frame I have, and am getting
into the background the leading features of Kelmscott,
— the house, the picturesque old church, and the river-
banks. I think it will be pretty. I have made chalk-
drawings, too, of the kids and of their mamma.

I am sorry you do not seem to see your way quite
clearly about the Nativity at the old barn, but hope you
will yet drop into it. I think you ought to do some
painting again, for your own satisfaction above all, for I
am sure when one has once got used to brush-work one
cannot, somehow, do without it. I hope Miss Boyd is
also at something, for I feel sure that her last efforts show
great advance, and believ-e her to possess at least as much
power in painting as any woman I know — even the best.
Brown wrote to me from the Dark Blue for a poem which
he was to illustrate, and I sent him that " Holmscote "
thing now called " Down Stream," which removes your
just objection to title.

The Stillmans are back and have brought me a
Yankee Polly. Tell me if you want your loans (Mags,
and Belgian book) back at once. With love — Yours,

D. G. R.

I hope all this palaver doesn't look as if I did not
value your opinion, which I assure you I set great store
by, and only call in question because it sets me thinking.

D. G. R. to W. B. S. (VII.)

Dear Scotus — Your three Burns Sonnets^ are such
as only yourself could produce, in their tension of relish-
ing reality with an effortless command of thought. I
have no doubt they are the very best things ever written
about Burns in verse, or in any prose but Carlyle's. The
first yields perhaps a little too much to momentary mood

^ The sonnets are given later on, p. 164.

IX D. G. R:S letters from K elm SCOTT 153

in its octave section, seeming a little hard to identify or
localise, fresh and fine as it is. The last line of Sonnet
I. must, I think, be altered. " I ween " is almost always a
makeshift and moreover is essentially the same rhyme
as " between." If the rest of the line remains as it is
" now ours " will not do, will it, for sound ? " Made ours "
might mend it perhaps. In II. the first line of the sextet
seems to have a sing-song quality by the placing of the
words " tares " and " years " ; the same is the case with
the tallying sound of the first halves of lines i i and
1 2 ; and surely the rhyme " man " and " one " will not
do except Scottice — no pun meant ! Alight line i 2 run —

" Die autumn-sounds, and lo ! This man alone."

Not so forcible of course, but I fear me an unavoidable
compromise. " Years " and " whirr," with their tallies
come ill together as a combination of rhymes (of course I
do not suppose them meant to rhyme with each other),
but this it seems necessary to let be. Sonnet III. seems
as satisfactory in form as in sense. I would only myself
prefer the omission of the first " it " and the break in
line I ; and in my copy there is an oversight in line 13,
" beats " for " beat." I really think it will be a serious
matter for regret if you do not go over everything you
have by you carefully and bring out a volume again. I
am sure it would be worth your while in every way.
What a monstrous event is the rejection of Lady Janet ! —
but published in a volume it would take its place at once
I have no doubt at all. I hope these three sonnets are to
set you going again. What a very strange event seems
the fall of Kilkerran occurring just in this little nook of
time since my visit. I have often thought of it and the
strange water-whirl near it.

Brown is doing the cut for my verses, and I wanted
him to come here ien garcon) for his background, but he
seems not easy to move.

W^e did not e.xpect to hear again from Morris till his
return, as the steamer which took him brought the first

154 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chw.

letter we got on its passage back, and no other steamer
would come thence till the one by which he will return —
I believe about the 9th or loth. However, a few days
ago a letter did come (entrusted to some Danish merchant-
man sailing thence), and gave a very pleasant account,
though not an elaborate one. He is enjoying himself
thoroughly, finds the people so hospitable (when there are
any) that his party has no lack of bearable provisions,
and their rides consist of a cavalcade of no less than
twenty-eight horses ! Tent-sleeping they do not suffer
from at all even in cold weather, as the cold is thoroughly
excluded. He has seen all kinds of localities connected
with the Sagas. He took sketching materials, but does
not say if he has used them.

I have left no proper space to pulverise " criticasters "
on behalf of my muse, so I will e'en leave her and them
to their own respective devices. However, what do you
think of this as a change in the last 4 lines of " Cloud
Confines " ? —

Oh never from Thee to sever
Who wast and shalt be and art,

To throb at Thy heart for ever
Yet never to know Thy heart.

Does this not seem as if it meant a personal God ? I
don't think it need do so.

I've done no more verses (hardly) except to begin a
long ballad about a Magic Crystal — but I don't know
when I may get it done.

My best love to Miss Boyd as well as to yourself The
Woodchuck has the same but (at Chelsea) wots not of it.
Stillman, I hear, has brought me a green parrot. — Ever
yours, D. G. R.

D. G. R. to W. B. S. (VHI.)

Dearest Scotus — " Cloud Confines " again ! One's
" I " is obtrusive enough in tins world at any rate.

I don't go with your objection to the wind-up as
contradictory. It is meant as the possible answer to the

IX D. G. R:S letters from K elm SCOTT 155

question. I cannot suppose that any particle of life is
extingiiisJied, though its permanent individuality may be
more than questionable. Absorption is not annihilation ;
and it is even a real retributive future for the special atom
of life to be re-embodied (if so it were) in a world which
its own former ideality had helped to fashion for pain or
pleasure. Such is the theory conjectured here. But I
believe I am of opinion with you, perhaps, that it is best
not to try to squeeze the expression of it into so small a
space, but rather to leave the question quite unanswered.
When I sent you the change, howe\-er, it was a thought
of the moment, and I have since made it fit better : — as
thus —

(Last_y?r't: lines.)

And what must our birthright be ?
Oh, never from thee to sever,

Thou Will that shalt be and art,
To throb at thy heart for ever.

Yet never to know thy heart.

However, I now incline to reject this and adopt the
other plan, only to wind up with the old refrain would
hardly be either valuable or artistic. I should propose to
end thus —

What words to say as we go ?

What thoughts to think by the way ?

What truth may there be to know ?

And shall we know it one day ?

Now about your Burns Sonnets.

I think your new last lines to Sonnet II. a great im-
provement, and of course much better than my suggestion,
which, I said, was but a poor one. However, }-ou've not
removed the "' eyes " and " dies," making a false rhyme at
equal intervals — a great defect always, I think. Suppose
we say " fails " for " dies." Since I wrote you last, a
change for the first lines of Sonnet I. has occurred to me,
which seems helpful in clearness, though it is rather
venturesome to give it }'ou. However, take it for what it
may be worth —

156 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

" Out of the road, you ploughman clad in gray,
With hosen knitted by your mother's hand ! "
(Methinks I hear some magnates of the land,)

" Stand from our carriage-wheels, you stop the way ! "
Awed is he ? etc.

P.S. — If you want to make Sonnet I. perfect, here I
come bothering again. The form of apostrophe adopted
seems too long in sequence, and rather inconsequent to
the ear, though not in reality.

To me it would seem better if it merely said —

He keeps his happy way on foot between, etc.
Cheeky all this, but never mind !

P.P. etc. 5. !

I almost forgot something.

The Daily Tdegrapli (!) has put a notion in my head,
by an article on lithography. I should like to try and
lithograph myself that big picture of mine, and see if one
could make anything fit for publication, and what would
come of it. I mean on the scale and style somewhat of
the French organ-player subject. If one could do some-
thing of this sort w4th one's inventions (much the best
quality I have as a painter) one might really get one's
brain into print before one died, like Albert Diirer, and
moreover be freed perhaps from slavery to " patrons "
while one lived.

I fancy such a thing might be possible to my eyes if
I could do it, but I ahvays hear lithography cannot be
done in England because of the climate or something or
other. Do you know anything about it, or what is the
best firm for printing such things?

D. G. R. to W. B. S. (IX.)

Kelmscott, iz^tJi September 1871.

Dearest W. B. — I hope I shan't disgust you by
saying that I miss the spirited start of Sonnet I. in your
present version, though, of course, it elucidates the sense.

IX D. G. R:S letters from KELMSCOTT 157

Moreover, the first line now seems of a Browningian
ruggedness rather, and suggests a very rutty carriage-road.
Also (alas !) I miss the original plan of bringing Burns
and ourselves in contact in the last line. This seems a
great loss.

Morris only stayed a few days here, but is coming
back. He has kept a diary in Iceland, but not for
publication, and his stories (as far as I have heard; are
not so funny as I hoped. The best is to the effect that
Faulkner and Magnusson, at one hospitable mansion
which they visited, had their breeches deferentially re-
moved by the lady of the house on retiring to refresh
themselves and prepare for dinner ! Of this national
custom they had heard before starting, but it was only
actually observed on this occasion. I do not know how
Morris escaped, and he was silent on that point ; but I
should think most likely the evident imminence of a
defensive bootjack flying through the air may have caused
his kind hostess to think twice about this time-honoured
tradition in his case. He seems to have been much the
best traveller of the four, though he declares now that he
feels no yearning towards a second experience of the
same kind. One day he was here he went for a day's
fishing in our punt, the chief result of which was a sketch
I made, inscribed as follows :

Enter Skald, moored in a punt,
And Jacks and Tenches exeunt.

And this seemed to be the course of events.

My poem, " The Beryl Stone," has not a comic side,
Scotus, or at least not an intentional one ; indeed it is so
consumedly tragic that I have been obliged to modify the
intended course of the catastrophe to avoid an unmanage-
able heaping up of the agony. I have made a complete
prose version beforehand, and so get on with it easily,
and shall finish, I hope, before leaving here. I hope it is
a good thing, but there is so much incident that it is
necessarily much more of a regular narrative poem than is
usual with me, and thus lacks the incisive concentration

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

of such a piece as " Sister Helen." I have had to make
three Parts of it, though the whole will not, I hope, now
exceed 150 five-line stanzas. I shall be glad to make it
less if possible, as this, I think, should be the great aim
of all poetry which has not absolutely epic proportions.
Nor should these be undertaken at all if avoidable.

Your suggestion about chiaroscuro engraving is one
I should like to talk over. Two things sent me by
Norton from Italy, and which I have stuck on my bed-
room wall here, are, I think, of that class, done some
hundred years ago perhaps. They are from Veronese
and Tintoret, painters whom I have got to think simply
detestable without their colour and handling. The
Veronese is by an engraver named Jackson ; the Tintoret
I suppose to be Italian. I presume the line part in such
work is wood-engraving, is it not ? This at once calls in
a hand not one's own, and I must confess the general
effect seems to me wanting in depth and colour, though
it might conceivably include both perhaps.

I am delighted to hear of the progress of the Nativity
subject, from which I shall expect real results, and sur-
prised to hear that the Burns picture has actually been
accomplished. Howell is at Northend, I believe, and has
actually got his father with him at last, as I hear ! The
Tademas will be lucky if they get the " Rainy Day,"
which, however, is rather an ominous wedding -present.
The Portfolio you asked after is not worth sending, I
think. With love to Miss Boyd, of whose work you tell
me not, I am ever yours, D. G. R.

P.S. — Discontent again! I think the " and " before
" lo ! " in line i 2, Sonnet II., is wanted. Could it not run :

Of stream and hoppers hushed ; and lo ! this one, etc. ?

In this letter we hear of his getting well on with
his longest mystical poem, " The Beryl Stone," which,
however, he does not send me any portion of; in
fact he never show^ed an incomplete work in poetry.

IX D. G. R:S letters from KELMSCOTT 159

It is to be observed that he has made a complete
prose vei^sion beforehand, a plan that he now began
to practise, to the ruin of his impulse and invention.
The subject " Orchard Pits," which he had planned
before his departure from Penkill, and which I saw
reason to think would have turned out his finest
imaginative Ballad Poem, was ruined by his making
a similar prose version. This being done had the
effect of crippling his powers. The instant I read
this preliminary piece of work, I felt the poem itself
would never follow.

His idea of chiaroscuro prints was never tried.
The things he mentions as being sent him by
a Mr. Norton from Italy were detestable perform-
ances : attempts to revive the ancient chiaroscuros
by early Germans and Italians, Da Carpi and many
others, who, being themselves great artists, made
admirable prints in a wild rough style of effect. All
these I had among my collection, and still have
many ; but Jackson was a very poor artist and his
works are base. He tried his revival towards the
middle of last century, and had some influence in
rendering printed wall-papers the rival of stamped
leather as interior humble decoration.

D. G. R. to W. B. S. (X.)

Kelmscott, Friday (1S71).

Dear Scotus — I have two only pieces of news I
think ; let the worst come first.

Obiit Woodchuck

i6o WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

I have really felt very sad about him, poor dear.^ Don't
ask details of his decease, for I know none.

I really forget whether you or I be the epistolary
debtor, but this news had to be told. The other news is
that 1 have finished " Rose Mary," my magic poem — three
parts making i6o stanzas. I hope it's a good 'un. It's
no good thinking of sending it you, being too long to
copy, and I want the one I have — moreover, shouldn't
like to risk loss. It ought to have been done at Pen-
kill, however, being a sort of Scotch or Border story. I
found I could make it nothing else, though on this
account I avoided setting about the long - delayed
Orchard Pits." I should like to do that and another
now as soon as may be — and then with smaller things
might perhaps make a fair volume again.

A brother Yankee sent me a queer account of IMiller
the other day cut from a New York paper. He seems to
be known in the newspaper parlance as The Wild Byrojt
of the Untrammelled Plains. — Perhaps there's a deal of
lying about him.

I shall have to get back soon now, with less painting
done than I hoped, as the poem clawed hold of me and
had to be done. I hope your picture gets on.

Let's have a line from you. You're owing it now,
whether or not you were before. — Ever yours,

D. G. R.

Hiiffer has come to be our neighbour at i i Cheyne
Walk. He wrote me that a Tauchnitz volume of my
things is to appear.

D. G. R. to \V. B. S. (XL)

Monday {2iid October 1 871).

Here comes my last Kelmscott letter, Scotus, and
I'm blowed if I haven't been a better correspondent than

1 The Woodchuck was one of the many favourites D. G. R. in-
dulged in keeping. It was a curious creature ; and should have
lived for ever if the servants in his absence had attended to it.

IX D. G. R:S letters from KELM SCOTT i6i

you have — though I daresay I've done as much work too.
I'm glad to hear you've got the barn painted, but view the
proposal to leave it as barn simple, as a base one after my
liberality in bestowing that splendid subject on you.

I fancy I shall be in town certainly before you, though
I can't say exactly what day I leave here. They are all
at Euston Square again, and Wm.'s news of Christina is
that she is now much in her average state of health and
spirits.

Morris has been here twice since his return, viz. for a
few days at first, and just now for a week again. He is
now back in London, and this place will be empty of all
inmates by the end of this week, I think. M. has set to
work with a will on a sort of masque called " Love is
Enough," which he means to print as a moderate quarto,
with woodcuts by Ned Jones and borders by himself,
some of which he has done really very beautifully.

The poem is, I think, at a higher point of execution
perhaps than anything that he has done — having a
passionate lyric quality such as one found in his earliest
work, and of course much more mature balance in carrying
out. It will be a very fine work.

Of course I'm leaving here just as I was getting into
the poetic groove, and I know were I to stay I should have
a volume ready by the end of another three months.
But it may not be. My title of " Rose Mary " is a
compounded name, dedicatory to the Virgin, quite possible
enough and useful to my scheme. The poem is much
more plain-sailing narrative, I think, than any of mine
hitherto ; but one must not forget that when Browning
finished "Sordello," he wrote to his friends from Italy that
now at any rate he had done something which his worst
enemies could not call obscure.

I see by advertisements I figure as the first victim in a
series (I presume) under the title of the " Fleshly School
of Poetry " ^ in the Contemporary Revieiu for October, but

1 This was the first notice of the blow that nearly lost him his
life. Byron's impudent couplet —

VOL. II M

i62 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

haven't seen it yet. Brown's drawing to my verses
(stanza i) in the Dark Blue is a very fine one, I think —
two indeed there are, and the minor one (stanza 4) also is
very nice. — You ask me about America. My vol was
printed there at once, and I received through the pubHshers
many reviews — some enthusiastic, others sulky or dis-
paraging. All the author's percentage they have sent me
is a beggarly ;£^20,^ and I don't believe the thing has had
a popular success there.

Did you see in the Pall Mall Gazette a letter about a
Communalist Benevolent Society in London ? It interested
me, as they seem really, poor fellows, to be helping each
other in a very bad plight, and I sent a subscription to
Colvin, asking him to get it conveyed through the Pall
Mall, but have not heard from him. Poor old Courbet's
escape was satisfactory, though after all it seems probable
he may be stripped of all he possesses, being the only one,
it seems, with any money to meet the joint liability of the
prisoners for their expenses. It put me in a great rage
all along to see the contempt with which this really
meritorious man was treated by the press, as contrasted
with the excitement about everything concerning so paltry
an adventurer as * * *

I have read several of Scott's novels here, and been
surprised both at their usual melodramatic absurdities of
plot and their astounding command of character in the
personages by whom all these improbabilities are enacted.

Strange that the soul, that very fieiy pai-ticle,
Should let itself be snuffed out by an article

has been entirely denied as applied to Keats. There can be no
doubt of its truth applied to D. G. R. He was saved from imined-
iate death by Professor Marshall, but he never recovered his mental
balance, even such as it had been for many years before.

^ This puts me in mind of Emerson's answer, when I asked him
on his last visit to England (he called twice on me at Chelsea) why
the Americans had not taken to Rossetti as a poet. His answer
included Christina's poetry as well, and showed the keenness of his
critical incision. " Yes ; we scarcely take to the Rossetti poetry ;
it does not come home to us ; it is exotic ; but we like Christina's
religious pieces."

IX D. G. R:S letters from KELMSCOTT 163

The novels are wonderful works with all their faults.
Guy Mannering and St. Ronan's ]Vcll — neither of which
I knew before — delighted me extremely. Another I read
is the Fair Maid of Perth, which is on a level with the
Victoria Drama in some respects, but in some points of
conception and vivid reality in parts can only be compared
to the greatest imaginative works existing.

I am sorry Miss Boyd is not to return with you, as it
will thus be some time before we benefit by the society
of Hiififer, Boyce, or our old friend Tacitus. Will you
give her my love and believe me your affectionate

Gabriel.

P.S. — I hear through William that the proposal to
move our father's remains being negatived by my mother's
objections, a memorial is to be erected to him in Santa
Croce, Florence.

And so the one-sided correspondence ends. I
may, how^ever, make a finale by quoting a distich on
his poor lost friend the Woodchuck, which I have
somehow preserved, while losing the leaf of his last
letter on which it must have been written. The
title " Parted Love " is chaff directed to my Sonnets
so called, which he held to the highest honour of
any poems I had ever done.

PARTED LOVE!

Oh, how the family affections combat
Within this heart, and each hour flings a bomb at
My burning soul ; neither from owl nor from bat
Can peace be to me now I've lost my W^ombat !

But since I have given Rossetti's complimentary
opinion as well as persevering criticism, showing
both the fulness of his expression of friendly and

1 64 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

favourable verdict, and his willingness to aid with
advice, I think it necessary to give the reader the
Sonnets about Burns themselves, that he may-
satisfy himself regarding the works calling forth so
much notice from the author of such great per-
formances as the "White Ship," and the "King's
Tragedy."

THREE SONNETS

ON VISITING BURNS'S COTTAGE AND MONUMENT

I

" You Ayrshire ploughman clad in homespun gray,
And hosen knitted by your mother's hand — "
(Methinks I hear some magnate of the land,
Loitering upon fashion's smooth highway),
" Step out and sing to pass our time away.

We'll call thee Phoebus in his shepherd trim,
Or eastern Bacchus with the wine in him.
Your song is done ? Good-night then, do not stay ! "

But why now think of him except between

The plough shafts, or with seed-corn in the spring.

Or by his native streams with loves unseen.
Or where autumnal flowering hedgerows bring
Odours and bees, and reaping lasses sing.

Whose brows now wear his myrtle ever green ?

II

This is the cottage room as 'twas of old :

The window four small panes, and in the wall
The box-bed, where the first daylight did fall
Upon their new-born infant's narrow fold
And poor, when times were hard and winds were cold,

SONNETS ON BURNS 165

As they were still with him. Lo ! now close by
Above Corinthian columns mounted high
The old Athenian Tripod shines in gold !

The lumbering carriages of these dull years

Have passed away : their dust has ceased to whirr

About the footsore : silent to our ears

Is that maelstrom of Scottish men ; this son
Of all that age we count the kingliest one :

Such is Time's justice, Time the harvester.

Ill

Could we but see the Future ere it comes,
As gods must see effects in causes hid, —
How calmly could we wait till we were bid !

Heroes would hear triumphal far-off drums.

Would see fame's splendours ere the threads and
thrums

Had formed it in to-morrow's living loom ;

Would feel the honours round the marble tomb
O'er the black fosse in which this life succumbs.

If it were so ! but wiser fates take care

That it is not so : passing mists and storm.
The sunlight and the drifting clouds all form
A rent but triple veil 'gainst which the wings
Of crimson passion beat, a lock-fast gare,
Where, blinded nightingale, the poet sings.

It may be naturally asked why I did not print
these three sonnets, which had received so much
approbation from the greatest of our circle, and from
others. The answer requires a little explanation.
In my estimate of the poet's true mission in this

1 66 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

world, I hold that whatever he says should be the
vital truth In relation to the thing mentioned, man
or fact in story or nature, and I had come to the
conclusion that Burns's moral nature disqualified
him in my mind from receiving such eulogium.
Poetry without this absolutely critical sincerity and
truth may be beautiful, but its beauty is to me not
charming but offensive. It is as a Cyprian, to be
relegated to shores of Paphos and left there. At
this very time I had been engaged to edit the poetry
of the Ayrshire bard, to edit and illustrate, a task which
occupied a goodly share of study. This edition was
never published, although paid for by my publisher,
but it brought me into intimate correspondence with
Mr. Scott Douglas of Edinburgh, among others who
had dedicated themselves to the most elaborate and
careful examination of successive actions in the life
of the poet. Mr. Scott Douglas's subject was the
hitherto-considered lovely idyll of the swearing fealty
across the running stream, and giving Mary the
Bible with the same oath inscribed in it. By the
dates of various incidents and letters, Mr. Scott
Douglas established beyond doubt that Burns, im-
mediately on Mary's leaving the neighbourhood to
visit her relatives before her expected marriage,
made up his old intimacy with Jean Armour. Had
Mary not died on her journey to meet him again,
she would have found his oath gone to the winds,
and Burns already married. The Bible may still be
seen in the Mausoleum at Dumfries, but with the
inscription carefully pasted over by the family of the

IX SONNETS ON BURNS 167

girl. This discovery with all its possibilities of
treachery so disgusted me that I threw the sonnets
aside ; only converting the last of the three into a
celebration of Keats, who died with the belief that
he had written in water ! ^

1 [Sonnet II., however, was published in The Pocfs Harvest
Home, 1882, among the sonnets "Of Poets," p. 125. — Ed.]

CHAPTER X

1872 ROSSETTl's ILLNESS — STOBHALL

October of 1871 having begun and ended, all of us
had returned to Cheyne Walk, D. G. R.'s vigour in
all things, painting, poetry, and letter-writing — the
tone of the latter showing a healthy elasticity — he
had left never to find as^ain. We recommenced our
whist, sometimes with Boyce or Hiiffer, and some-
times by ourselves with our classical friend Ouartus
Tacitus, but the article in the Contemporary , referred
to in his last letter, was to him like a slow poison,
till at last he could not follow the game, and used
to throw down his cards.

A few words about ourselves. Miss Boyd had
become heiress to a large share in a vast ironwork,
and to a considerable share in the Tyne Main coal-
mine. One of these great commercial undertakings
became overhead in debt, cut out by other better-
located iron companies, when none of them were
very remunerative, and the water came into the
Tyne Main pit ! Whether the ancient family place
would be lost to her was hanging in the balance,
yet she showed no anxiety, but, like a heroine

D. G. ROSSETTI'S ILLNESS 169

determined to meet her fate without closing her
eyes, she waited the end, which was not so serious
as it threatened to be. She had found, too, after
her brother's death, that Penkill was mortgaged!
I mention these things, which are not properly
within the compact with myself in writing these
notes, just to show the contrast in the trio thus
meeting together in the attempt to make life pass
pleasantly. One a lady able to bear herself
equably on the verge of what she felt to be the
greatest misfortune possible to befall her affairs ;
another, the man thought by his world (myself
among the number) one of the greatest geniuses of
the age, visibly breaking down under the paltry
infliction of "an article." The third, an old boy,
making himself contented at last to be a pidor
ignohis, a poet without recognition, during the span-
long time of his journey in the world ; supported, it
may be, by the belief that sooner or later, somehow
or other, we all get some part of our deserts, and if
we do not it matters litde. I was, indeed, haunted
by the consciousness of having missed my mark by
following "all things by starts, and nothing long"
— a habit that had become necessary to me ; it was
ruinous to me, in one way, but my salvation in
another, assisting me in keeping up a naturally
defective interest in life, and filling every moment
with more than its due weight of occupation, my
most efficient means of preventing the recurrent
attacks of a species of nervous despair. This
mental disease, although not mentioned before as

I70 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

far as I remember, had been all my life one of my
most perplexing and dangerous enemies. I had
gradually outlived it ; and now, much the oldest of
the three, I was able to sympathise with and to
assist both.

Sir Henry Cole had committed to my hands a
scheme for decorating the staircases to the two
doors of the lecture theatre at the Museum of South
Kensington. Had this been carried out it would,
I believe, have affirmed my position in art, but the
increase of the Museum made the accumulation of
new objects swarni even up the staircases ; at least
the fear of that delayed the work till funds had to
be otherwise applied. The drawings in small were
deposited in the archives of the Museum, but here
is a tracing of my design for one of the doors,
representing The Genius of Art recording names in
a Libro cT Oro, and on the pilasters on either side
the apple boughs of Knowledge, with the serpent
round the stems, modelled and cast in metal.
Among the literary work of the passing day I
wrote a Christmas book on the Venetian School,
and one on the Spanish, which Sir \V. Stirling
Maxwell kindly read over in proofs. Others fol-
lowed, on English Sculptors ; English Landscape
Painters ; Italian Af asters, Lesser ajtd G^'cater, etc.
These were better than they deserved to be, and
only made me feel that I was throwing my time
away, and was in danger of looking like a literary
hack ; so I did no more. When the scheme for paint-
ings on the staircases collapsed, I said to Sir Henry

PaoajravuT! byAimanitone.ljlasqow.

^J/iiM//,AH/^j£(^Me^<Jnm.^£yJy^^ ^^nM^ia/cm .

D. G. ROSSETTI 171

Cole how much I regretted the faikire, adding that
my chances somehow were always withdrawn. " Oh,
we make our own chances," was his reply, which I
have never forgotten, so true and yet so delusive,
temperament having so much command over us.
For myself the bias natural to me is to somnam-
bulate, not to act ; never to play first fiddle, rather
to pay him ; to reflect mainly, and to absorb amuse-
ment from my surroundings and friends.

At last midsummer of 1872 was drawing on.
/B. had left us for Penkill, and I was looking
forward to following her. One day I had some
friends to dinner ; ten used to be my number, two
or three times in the season before leaving town.
On this particular day one of the friends was
D. G. R. ; we were loitering about the drawing-
room waiting for the latest man, who was Gabriel
himself. At last we heard a tremendous peal at
the bell, and knocking, a great noise ascended the
stair, and he burst in upon us, shouting out the
name of Robert Buchanan, who, it appeared, he
had discovered to be the writer of the article in the
Contemporary Reviezv which was so distracting him.
He was too excited to observe or to care who were
present, and all the evening he continued unable to
contain himself, or to avoid shouting out the name
of his enemy. I was glad when the sitting came to
an end, and one after another left with a private
word of inquiry regarding Rossetti. From this
time he occupied himself in composing a long reply,
which he read over a hundred times, till the lives of

172 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

his friends became too heavy to bear. But in a
very few weeks the crisis came.

One morning at an early hour W. INI. R. came
along to me — now living at hand, at No. 92 — in a
desponding state of mind. He wished me to
accompany him at once. Swallowing a cup of tea,
we hurried to No. 16, and found our friend in a
condition painful to witness. Professor Marshall,
and Dr. Hake, whose verses Rossetti had so
admired and assisted — now doctoring his doctor in
another art — were there, and agreed that the patient
must chang-e his surroundinQ;s. Where was he to
go ? Dr. Hake answered that question by offering
to take him out with him to his house at Roe-
hampton. A cab was brought at once ; we all
thought it strange to see him so willing to go, but
that niofht it was too evident he wanted to be
secluded, and for three days he lay as one dead,
and only by a treatment, invented for the moment
by Professor Marshall, was he cured. But as I was
only at Roehampton on one visit, not to him, but to
William, who was made seriously ill by his brother's
state, it does not fall to me to give any further
account of my friend's sad condition, till it was
determined that he was not to return to Chelsea,
but that a further change of scene would be neces-
sary, and I volunteered to be a second with young
George Hake, to take charge of him. His new
retirement was to be far off, at Stobhall, near
Perth, the shooting and fishing quarters of William
Graham, M.P. for Glasgow, his most efficient

5l

D. G. ROSSETTI 173

friend, and the greatest admirer of his art. Brown
and George Hake took him down, and when I was
free to leave town, just two days after, I released
the former and stayed with him there for three long
weeks.

The place where we lived, Stobhall, by the Tay
near Perth, was, two centuries ago, one of the
houses of the ancient family of the Drummonds, the
head of which, the Duke of Perth, as the Jacobites
called him, lost everything in the rebellion of 171 5.
It was originally a peel tower with a very un-
common appendage, a chapel of the same early date
as the tower ; and now it had one of the most
charming old gardens I have ever seen, with Irish
yews and hollies, trained by long years of careful
shaping into straight columns 25 feet high, and roses
almost reaching to the same height supported on
poles. The part we lived in was more modern, but
some of the small rooms in the early portion of the
house were lovely in their rude but pure style. I
painted a water-colour picture of the garden, and
here is a sketch of a primitive fireplace, dated 1578,
and recessed window in a small room. The chapel,
I considered on careful examination, had been the
earliest portion of the building. There is no other
example of a peel or defensible square tower, incor-
porated with which is a chapel, and in this case the
chapel occupies the ground, and the house has
been built partly over it. After a time, the larger
dwelling-house in which we lived, with its gateway
and causewayed courtyard, had been added.

174 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

Of our lives these melancholy weeks I shall
say little. He could not take much walking
exercise, a partial lameness or paralysis of one side
having resulted from the days of unconsciousness
during which he had remained rigidly in one con-
strained position. He could not bear reading, nor
would he join us in the old game. From all the
letters I wrote at that time I make no extract. I
have not hitherto used my own letters, the few I
have access to, in this writing, and shall not do so
now ; it would be too painful ; although, indeed, I
cannot help feeling that his malady was unique —
different from other maladies, as he himself was
different from other men. His delusions had a
fascination, like his personality.

Meanwhile his brother William had been so
prostrated by anxiety, loving Gabriel much and
fearinof him not a little, that F. M. Brown took all
business matters out of his hand. Gabriel's affairs
were alarmingly out of order, and it was thought
proper to have all his pictures, finished or in progress,
removed elsewhere. They were accordingly taken
to my house, which was conveniently near, among
them the largre " Dante's Dream." The blue china
which he had collected, partially but very in-
adequately accounting for the exhaustion of his
exchequer, was precipitately sold. This aesthetic
passion, which would have excited the laughter of
any other poet, except the most artificial man of the
Hotel Rambouillet, if such gentlemen of the full-
bottomed wig and the clouded cane can be called

D. G. ROSSETTI 175

poets, was still so strong upon him that when in a
few months his amazing power of resuscitation
brought him back to health, the loss of this china
appeared to trouble him more than anything else !
Perhaps it might be that the disposal, without his
knowledge, of this assemblage of pots and dishes
proved to him how ill he had been, as he still con-
tinued to assert that we were under delusions and not
he himself, as to the number of his enemies, and it
was difficult to make him own he had been ill at all.

I have spoken of the amazing bodily power of
recovery our friend showed ; week by week the
cloud rose, and towards the end of September he
insisted on leaving Scotland, and returning, not to
Penkill, whither Miss Boyd had invited him, but to
Kelmscott, which at that moment he could have all
to himself.

From there he wrote to me in the beginning of
October. " Here I am, as well as ever I was in my
life. I passed the greater part of yesterday with my
mother and sisters at Euston Square, and came on
here to-day. Even my lameness seems a little
better the last few days, and my voice is itself again.
Your character as a correspondent is entirely gone.
Are you ever going to give me news of yourself
again ? If I wanted to get possession of the large
' Dante's Dream ' picture, now at your house, how am
I to do so ?" This inquiry showed he had returned
to painting again ! And so it was : I visited him,
and found him hard at work, as if no break in the
continuity of his habits had taken place ! Anxious

176 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

for some medical news of him before I went to Kelms-
cott, I wrote to Dr. Hake, and he answered that
he heard very often of Rossetti, directly or indirectly,
and found every account satisfactory in a high
degree. " The past seems to be dwindling into a
dream, and I cannot doubt but that it recurs to our
gifted friend only in that light, though he will, to
avoid a painful avowal, never return to the subject
with his friends, and it is best perhaps that it
should be treated as forgotten. His mind appears
now to be in a state of healthy activity as regards
painting, but I doubt if he will resume literature for
some time to come, his poetry having produced him
so painful an experience."

I was at this time (as I have already said) much
occupied on a new edition of Burns, both as editor
and illustrator, and Mr. Scott Douglas of Edinburgh,
kindly assisting me, among other things sent me an
unpublished letter of Burns, so exuberant in its flowers
of speech, I sent a copy to amuse Rossetti, fearing I
should not be able to have it printed, and not being
able at once to visit him. This letter of the Ayr-
shire poet's delighted him immensely. He replies :
" Many thanks for this wonderful epistle! — to what
Corinthian, Galatian, or other, seems not to be
known. It is Burns himself for once, instead of
Burns trying as usual in his letters to be Addison,
Pope, or any one else. Is it really possible that such
a document should not get into print ? It stands
out among the mass of his correspondence and should
absolutely be in print. If you could only get a few

BURiVS TO A INS LIE 177

more such letters, your edition would supersede all
other editions." Then he goes on to notice all the
news of our friends current at the day, just as he
used to do before his illness ! Colvin's success and
F. AI. Brown's unsuccess at the Cambrido^e election
of the first Slade Fine Arts professorship, and his own
extraordinary activity in painting, having begun his
"Proserpine" five distinct times on five canvases,
and having at last brought it nearly to a close, after
infinite pains making it his " best picture." He has
been reading Vasari, BenvemUo Cellini, and among
new books Salcwiinbo, "a mighty and altogether
new kind of French abomination, very wonderful
and unsufferable." Besides, he has eot together all
the necessary books for the purpose of translating
and editing M. Angelo's poems, which he is to set
about at once in the evenines.

Here is this astounding letter of Burns's with an
alteration : ,, j ^r 1 00

Mauchline, id March 17SS.
Mv DEAR AiNSLlE — I have been through sore tribu-
lation and under much buffeting of the wicked one since
I came to this country. Jean I found banished like a
martyr — forlorn, destitute, and friendless — all for the
good cause. I have reconciled her to her fate ; I have
reconciled her to her mother ; I have taken her a room ;
I have taken her in my arms ; I have given her a
mahogany bed ; I have given her a guinea, and I have
kissed her till she rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full
of glory. But — as I always am on every occasion — I
have been prudent and cautious to an astonishing degree.
I swore her privately and solemnly never to attempt any
claim upon me as a husband, even though anybody should
try to persuade her she had such a claim, which she had
not, either during my life or after my death. She did all

VOL. II N

178 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

this like a good girl, and I kissed her again with a
thundering kiss. Oh, what a peacemaker that is ! It is
the Mediator, the Guarantee, the Umpire, the Bond of
Union, the Solemn League and Covenant, the Plenipoten-
tiary, the Aaron's Rod, the Jacob's Staff, the Prophet
Elisha's Pot of Oil, the Philosopher's Stone, the Horn of
Plenty, and the Tree of Life between man and woman.

To Mr. Robert Aixslie, at ^NIr. S. Mitchelsox, W.S.,
Carubber's Close, Edinburgh.

When I did Qet down to Rossetti at Kelmscott
the change upon him was a metamorphosis ; it was
hke a miracle ! A few months ago he was paralysed
on one side of his body, and entirely out of his
mind ; now he was perfectly well, painting better
than ever, and talking with his old incision ! Young
George Hake was still his wakeful attendant, though
little necessary, and his father, the doctor himself,
developing "the ideal" in solitude in the room
below at the rate of about two lines a day. From
the clearing away of breakfast there he sat by the
fire, a pencil in one hand and a folded piece of
paper in the other. On the table near him lay a
little heap of other pieces of paper, his failures at
the improvement of the same couplet in various
transformations, sometimes expressing quite different
meanings. The old gentleman in the character of a
poet had interested all of us. He had retired from
medicine determined to cultivate poetry. And he
was really accomplishing his object by perseverance
and determined study, utterly pooh-poohing the
maxim that if a man has not made a good poem at
twenty-five he never will.

D. G. ROSSETTI 179

I was not sanguine in considering that my dear
friend now looked back on his former state as dreams.
They were still to him realities. But here I stop ;
perhaps, indeed, finishing all I shall have to say of
him. The habit of takinor chloral for insomnia —
the origin of which or the time of its commencement
I am ignorant of, but of which 1 observed nothing
at Penkill in 1868 or 1869 — is fondly credited with
all his evils by some of his intimate friends. But
these evils were in fitful activity very long ago, and
were really the cause of his resorting to chloral —
not the effect of that in any way.

On the 19th of April 1874 I received these
words by post : " ^Iv dear Scotus — I am likely to
be needing ^200 in a few days, and happen un-
luckily at this moment to be run rather dry. Could
you manage to lend it me } and if so, to oblige me
with a cheque at once ^ " Knowing his affairs to be
prosperous at the time, I could not view this request
with composure. He was living quietly at Kelms-
cott ; but I came to the conclusion that it was my
duty as his friend to keep his mind easy. Accord-
ingly by next post the cheque was despatched. By
next again it came back to me in a note, saying he
had "just received some money, and he returned
my cheque no less thankfully than if he had needed
it." He had by that time lost nearly every old
friend save myself; did he now suspect that I was
among his enemies, and had he done this to try me }
I fear this semi-insane motive was the true one.

A very short time after he suddenly left Kelms-

I So WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

cott for altOQ^ether, havinor crot into a foundationless
quarrel with some anglers by the river, unnecessary
to describe. He sent for me. I found him quiet
and taciturn ; he only said the change would do him
good. From that time till now that I write this he
has lived within the house, never going even into
the street, never seeing any one. Holman Hunt,
Woolner, and other artists had left him long ago ;
now Swinburne and Morris were not to be seen
there. Even Dr. Hake deserted him, feeling
aggrieved by his patient and long-suffering son
George having been driven away after several years'
sacrifice. The old doctor would see him no more.
Before his worst attack, a few days before Hake
took him out to his house at Roehampton, Brown-
ing had sent him Fijine at the Fair, which obscure
performance greatly aggravated Rossetti's state of
mind ; he believed it was entirely written about
him, and against him, all the innuendoes and in-
sinuations being aimed at him ! Browning, as his
manner was, had never acknowledged Rossetti's
presentation copy of his poems, and now this con-
firmed him to be among the enemies. What did the
book mean if it did not mean what Rossetti said ?
And in truth none of us could say at once what
Fifine at the Fair did mean ! Only two quite new
men were now to be seen about him : one was
William Sharp, a poet to be ; the other Theodore
Watts, who, being professionally a lawyer, managed
everything for him, and who was just then beginning
to write criticisms in the weekly papers, so was

D. G. ROSSETTI

looked upon by poor D. G. R. as doubly important.
Happily Watts has been invaluable since then in
many ways : fascinated by Rossetti, ill as he was, and
always ready and able to serve him. For myself,
Rossetti had been the last of a succession of men I
had loved and tried to make love me ; for each of
them I could have given all but life, and I was
again defeated by destiny. Equal candour and
confidence he never had to give, but now his singular
manias made ordinary friendly intercourse impossible
to him. After having been both his banker and his
nurse I could not depend upon him either in action
or word. Still I remained faithful to the old tie,
and Miss Boyd agreed in doing so also. We con-
tinued our occasional visits, either morning or even-
ing, the only two of all his old circle.

CHAPTER XI

1873 MV LAST VISIT TO ITALY DR. FRANZ HUEFFER

F. M. BROWN

By 1873 our permanent settlement at Chelsea had
attained to a tolerably perfect state of furnishing,
and in that year I was for the first time appointed to
assist in the examination of the annual works of
Schools of Art at South Kensington. William
Rossetti had recovered his composure of mind ; all
seemed settled into serenity. It was the time for a
long holiday. William and I arranged for a visit to
Rome by Genoa and Pisa, to take with us Miss
Boyd (who had overcome the danger of having to
part with her family place) and my wife. Neither
of the ladies had hitherto been across the Alps. We
proposed to go by Pisa, and return by Venice and
St. Gothard. At the last moment F. M. Brown's
daughter Lucy was added to our party, and our
expedition had a pleasant sequel in a wedding
celebrated soon after our return.

F. M, Brown was one of the few men of genius
I knew, and I may here record some particulars of
another addition to his family circle. To do this I

F. HUEFFER 183

must go back a year or two and introduce an amiable
and a verv charmina^ man with all the talents of the
dlite of his native country Germany, who appeared
just then in Brown's circle ; universally learned and
able in languages, yet unpretentious, and even re-
gretting the ability to think in several tongues as a
disadvantage, the habit being a distraction to a
literary composer. He had also some of the defects
of the German nature, at least as we think of it.
With the determination of critical thoroughness he
was lazy beyond any one I had ever known. Franz
Hueffer was a youth of twenty-five, but being un-
seasonably stout and unseasonably bald, he looked
like double his age ; and when he made love to
Brown's second and handsome daughter Cathy, who
was in mind as well as body like a child, there
seemed a little discrepancy in the intended union.
However, he persevered, and feeling that he should
have a profession he began his literary career. I
tried to help him through my friend, Mr. .William
Longman. But he could not settle himself to the
continuous hard work of WTiting a book ; his mind
was too much in suspense, and he became the most
fidgety of white elephants.

Yet it happened that at that moment he rushed
in upon me visibly in the happiest frame of mind,
reporting that he had got an offer of a kind quite to
his mind in his then happy state — an offer quite to
his taste, which was this: he was to have ^150 a
year for doing nothing! His knowledge of both
classic and modern languages was coming good to

1 84 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

him ; it had helped him to this ! though, alas ! it
did not help him to an understanding of London
literary life or business. I found on inquiry that he
had been offered a directorship in the management
of a new company, h. number of literary men had
bought the plant of a great printing-office, and
formed themselves into a board of directors, with
salaries of the sum named, and had invited him to
join them, only he must sign the deed of transfer.
I advised him to examine the whole matter first,
but he repudiated that troublesome preliminary.
They wanted some other good names on their pro-
spectus ; would I join ?

I agreed at once ; we sallied out to make in-
quiries. We went first to the great printing-office,
which we found shut up under sequestration of bank-
ruptcy ; then to my bank, finding it to be the same
named on their printed circular, which I produced to
the manager. Here I found the new company had
been warned not to use the name of the bank till
further proof of validity ! " Now," said I to him,
"let's go to the meeting (the meeting whereat the
deed of transfer was to be signed) if you are not yet
satisfied." Thither we went, to find the men who
were to have ^150 a year for doing nothing
anxiously waiting in the empty office of a. solicitor in
Chancery Lane. I could scarcely believe my senses
when I saw Hueffer taking the pen in hand to sign ;
however, I immediately took the odious duty of re-
porting where we had been, and what we had seen
and heard, and got him away. Even then he was

F. HUEFFER 185

inclined to continue in the delusion that I had stood
in his way to fortune.

I left to go down to Stobhall to take charge of
my sick friend when his wedding came off. Here is
the intimation of the happy occasion :

Fair Lawn, Lower Merton,
-i,oth August 1872.

My dear Scotus — The above legend, simple as it
may appear to the eye at first glance, is for me the symbol
of a sea of past troubles and tribulations. I daresay you
know what it is to hunt after a house for more than a
fortnight, and afterwards to furnish it ; but you are
luckily unaware of the unmitigated misery this idea con-
veys to a man who hitherto has not cared to know the
difference between one piece of furniture and another.
However ! I have at last got landed in a delightful little
cottage surrounded by countrified simplicities, and I hope
the spare bedroom — which, by the way, has a delightful
view — will soon shelter the illustrious sage, poet, and
painter. What a pity you can't come to the wedding, my
dearest Scotus. I shall miss you tremendously, as I have
always considered you as my dearest friend.

So I am going to be " spliced " next Tuesday, and
offer my bachelor liberty on the shrine of matrimony, as
they say. I wonder what this clerical operation will feel
like, which is to open the gates of happiness for life.
Upon the whole, I am mystified, and much more happy
and contented than Schopenhauer would approve of But
I still see distinctly that the grand foundation of matri-
monial happiness is the principle of keeping the pot boiling,
and with that view have enclosed the accompanying letter
[here follow some business particulars]. Goodbye, dear
Scotus. With kind regards to the fair chatelaine of Penkill,
— I am ever your devoted friend, F. HUEFFER.

A little while after his honeymoon — only four
months after our escape from getting ^150 a year

1 86 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

for doing nothing — reading the Daily Neivs one idle
morning, I fortunately observed the names of the
directors of the proposed company we had met at
that seductive gathering in Chancery Lane, in the
police reports. It was a case of a dozen starving
compositors and pressmen having the board of
directors of a new printing company before the
Marylebone magistrate for non-payment of wages !
What made it more perfect was that the sitting
magistrate asked the lawyer for an explanation. "Is
it," he asked, " that these directors divide the profits
among themselves ? " whereon the attorney answered
"that he could assure his honour that not one of the
directors had received a penny ! " I posted the
paper to my friend Hueffer, with some chaff and a
little advice, and here is his acknowledgment in the
same spirit. At the same moment I received a letter
from the Secretary of the Newcasde Literary Society,
complaining that he had never answered an invita-
tion to lecture there !

Dearest Scotus — You have actually managed to
bring forward in the three pages of your letter three dis-
tinct charges against poor me — (i) Imprudence ; (2) Un-
punctuality ; (3) Neglect in answering letter. Your
mixing up with this broth of defamation a monstrous
amount of self-praise is, of course, in keeping with the tone
of your letter, and your character in general, is it not ? I
have succeeded in cramming the essence of my indigna-
tion into the following verses, which I hope will silence you
for some time to come :

There's a grumpy old Scotchman called Bell Scott,
Who deserves to be roasting in hell's cot,

F. HUEFFER 187

So he would be, forsooth,
But for Lucifer's tooth,
Which shuns the tough morsel of Bell Scott.

Perhaps you will think I have been assisted by some
printer's devil of the " London Printing and Publishing
Company^' especially as I still send kindest regards. Even
under the blast of your satire — Your " blooming shrub,"

F. H.

I enjoyed this fun of his, and asked him to dine
with us on Christmas Day. In answer to the invita-
tion arrived the following :

Dearest Scotus — Ever so sorry we can't come and
share your Christmas pudding, but the fact is, we have
been engaged for a long time to eat our dinner en faniillc.
Many thanks, also, for your forgiveness for my energetic
utterances regarding his hellish majesty's dental faculties.
I now subjoin another rhyme, which imperfectly expresses
my later feelings :

There's a darling old Scotchman called Scotus,
Who, when fear and repentance had smote us,

Has nobly forgiven —

Sure he would be in heaven,
But that earth cannot spare that dear Scotus.

The habit of making satirical rhymes like these
was an outcome of the appearance of Lear's Book of
Nonsense. D. G. R. began the habit with us, the
difficulty of finding a rhyme for the name being often
the sole inducement. Swinburne assisted him and
all of us ; and every day for a year or two they used
to fly about. The dearest friends and most intimate
acquaintances came in for the severest treatment ;
but as truth was the last thino: intended — thouofh
sometimes slyly implied — nobody minded. Of course

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

I came in for a few. When I at once lost all my
hair after a severe illness, he began one :

There's that foolish old Scotchman called Scott,
Who thinks he has hair, but has not.

Another about me has some sense in it ; indeed I
adopted the second line in beginning to write these
notes, now extended to so many pages :

There's a foolish old Scotchman called Scotus,
IMost justly a Pictor ignotiis.

For what he best knew

He never would do,
This stubborn donkey called Scotus.

This I revenged by the following on Gabriel him-
self:

There's a painter his friends call G ,

Whose pictures the public ne'er see ;
If you want to know why,
It's because he 's so shy
To show how funny they be.

The allusion to his determination never to exhibit
did not please him ; but he made one on himselt
severe enough :

There is a poor sneak called Rossetti,
As a painter with many kicks met he —

With more as a man —

But sometimes he ran,
And that saved the rump of Rossetti.

Here is one on our dear learned friend Htiffer,
using a jocular pronunciation of the name current
in our circle, which at last made him write his name
Hueffer :

XI F. MADOX BROWN 189

There's a solid fat German called Huffer,
Who at anything funny 's a duffer :

To proclaim Schopenhauer

From the top of a tower
Will be the last effort of Huffer.

One of the cleverest I remember was the
following :

There's the Irishman Arthur O'Shaughnessy,
On the checkboard of poets a pawn is he,

Though bishop or king

Would be rather the thing
To the fancy of Arthur O'Shaughnessy.

My notice of our dear friend Franz Hueffer has
led me into a vortex of the nonsense verses of that
day which used to afford us much amusement at that
time, and so into a digression. But, indeed, my
whole manuscript is digressive, and sometimes far
from progressive.

To return to the family of Ford INIadox Brown,
of whom Hueffer was now a member. F. M. B.
was one of the highest thinkers among the English
artists, and one of the ablest painters ; he was, in
spite of singular caprices, one of the leaders of the
new school, and one much beloved by many of us.
Much beloved by all within the charmed circle of
the P.R.B., he was respected by all artists, and by
the world at large, holding a high character, which,
however, never brought him fortune nor even fame.
I have already given D. G. R.'s account of his first
introduction to Madox, the beginning of a life-
long friendship ; but to make the reader understand

IQO WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

further what manner of man he was, and why he
was so late in hfe before taking the position in
the art-world to which his powers entitled him, I
shall relate another anecdote which comes into my
memory at this moment. In doing so I am far
from laughing at my friend, and indeed am conscious
that I myself might be accused of very similar
absurdities in moments of anger. Be that as it may,
the anecdote was funny enough at the time.

Mr. Cole, afterwards Sir Henry, was then finish-
ing the central saloon of the S. K. Museum by filling
the top niches with figures of great artists, including
workmen deserving the distinction. Many of the
artists employed were entirely unconnected w^ith the
department, and among others he invited Madox
Brown to do one, selecting for him Julio Clovio
the miniaturist. Calling on my own affairs a few
days later, Mr. Cole asked if my friend Brown had
gone out of his head. On my replying with some
surprise, he placed in my hand a letter, w^hich I saw
immediately was in Brown's writing — the absurdest
thing of its kind I had ever seen. To make its
absurdity understood, I must premise that the vast
Department correspondence was, and probably is,
facilitated by the use of a certain size (foolscap)
paper, having printed en the top corners, right and
left, forms containing a number appropriated to the
document, and other directions to the correspondents
— all this being printed within ruled and ornamental
square enclosures.

F. M. B. had looked at this half-printed folio,

F. MADOX BROWN

and not finding it anything he understood at the
first moment, became furious, read it wrong, and
repHed in a moment by cutting a piece out of an
old drawing-sheet, making some grotesque scribbles
in the top corners, which had struck Mr. Cole as
examples of lunacy, filling the paper below with a
refusal to do any such thing as celebrate any such
fool as Julio Romano, and posted his reply at once.
I was most curious to unravel the mystery, and
took care not to be very long before calling on
F. jNI. B., who seemed quite in his usual frame of
mind. "My dear fellow," I said, "why did you
repudiate the invitation to do one of the cartoons for
the Museum ?" The explanation was just what I
have given above, only he had mistaken the name,
and thought they had selected for him, not Julio
Clovio, but his pet hatred among Italian artists, who
happened to be Julio Romano !

CHAPTER XII

THE RISING GENERATION IN POETRY, 1875

Several new persons have been introduced to my
little drama in these latter pages ; there are more
to follow. Poetry was the speciality of them all.
Poets in outward form are numerous nowadays, and
the British Museum abounds with them, although
verse -writing and publishing proclivities are per-
emptorily discouraged by the heads of the depart-
ments there. Twenty-five years ago I had met the
single poet of the establishment, Coventry Patmore,
and since then his sinole successor had been Richard
Garnett. Now they were impatiently hiding their
productions at every desk, poets with whom new
foT-ms were everything ; French verses, rondels, and
rondeaux being the perfect thing with them ; imagina-
tion, knowledge of life, insight, and power of thought,
the motive or sentiment, were very well, but not to
be had, so not to be required, English heroic verse
was presumed by them to be dead and buried ; ballad
quatrains, blank verse, and so forth, were all spoken
of with contempt ; and Tennyson's line in a lately-
published poem noting the danger to our poetical

CHAP. XII THE RISING GENERATION IN POETRY 193

literature from the "poisonous honey brought from
France," was the subject of mild but endless humour
among them.

The first of these to come in my way was E. W.
Gosse, who introduced himself by a note so long ago
as March 1870, on the publication of my Life and
Works of Albert Dilrcr — a book good for the
English public at the time, but now antiquated by
the rapidly-developed Diirer literature in Germany,
which has culminated in the thoroughly-studied
Memoirs by Dr. Thausing. I had omitted to men-
tion the pictures by Patinier, or rather never had
observed them in the National Gallery, and my new
correspondent pointed them out to me and asked
me whom I thought they were by, as they had some-
what attracted him, and he remembered a picture
with this painter's name attached to it in some
gallery at Antwerp. He apologised for trespassing
on my time, but would be glad to hear from me.
This note, dated from Tottenham, associated itself
in my mind with an individual of the same name and
address who had bought a picture by me from the
Hogarth Club. The note of my new correspondent
had all the aplomb of an amateur of long standing
intimate with obscure early masters. It flashed
into my mind that here was my old friend turning
up again, and that perhaps he might be a purchaser
once more. I accordingly invited him to call upon
me some day to inspect my Durer's prints, of which
I had already a formidable collection, and to talk
over old German art. Instead of my former patron,

VOL. II o

194 ] VILLI AM BELL SCOTT chap.

the portly gentleman of middle life, who should
appear but a boy of nineteen ! We took to him,
however.

The next of the British Museum poets who came
within my ken was Theodore Marzials, who had
indeed published a volume, which he called The
Gallei-y of Pigeons, half a year before, marked by
surprising individuality and imaginative qualities,
that ought to have given its author celebrity.
Marzials had previously circulated as a pamphlet
one of the poems in the volume called Passionate
Dozvsabella, which made us look for the coming
book with curiosity. This was not disappointed.
But he was of a restless, nervous nature, rushinor
into elevation or depression of spirits, and I have
never ceased to regret that the reception his first
volume met with has prevented him from persever-
ing. Among discouraging letters D.G.R.'s seemed
to have hurt him most. This letter passed through
my hands, but I knew nothing of its contents till I
had the following from Marzials :

My dear Mr. Scott — I have to thank you for so
many things I hardly know with which to begin. — Your
truly kind and sympathetic letter about my book I need
not tell you how much I value. And for sending me
Rossetti's letter — your intention has so flattered me, the
deed could hardly have done it more. I mean " flattered"
in the French sense — delighted and gratified. I think I
am right, or rather was right, in taking Rossetti's criticism
as a great kindness, since I feel that what he says is true,
that my book is crude and immature, and, what to my
mind is worse, trivial. But I may say in confidence to
yourself that when one considers how every reader of only

XII THE RISING GENERATION IN POETRY 195

one line of mine becomes my critic and how very few,
— some half-dozen, perhaps — there are in the world whose
sympathy one can honestly care for — sympathy for one's
aim, I mean — ^it is hard to lose it. Rossetti does not seem
to see (by what he picks out to admire) what I am driv-
ing at ; he praises my imitations, and not the vie, in the
book.

On asking D. G. R. what he had said in the letter
that had so hurt a noble but eccentric man like
Marzials, he was sorry for what he had written.
"But," he added, "if work sent to me is weak, I
prefer silence ; but if it is not, I take it the author
can only wish for one's real opinion either way. I
have since dipped Into some of the poems again,
with the same result as before, except that I have
been even more struck with the daintiness and fancy
of the last poem. It is so much more a whole than
almost any of the others, that I should suppose it to
be the last written. [This was a mistake, it was an
early one.] I must say the first in the book seems
about the worst of all — quite irritating in its pettiness
and absurdities." Unhappily, again, this was Mar-
zials's last and best, according to his ov/n ideas ; the
one representing himself. It was full of surprising
beauties, but expressed in the most wilful way.
Rossetti's criticism was not perspicuous, though in a
measure intelligent, resembling those on the appear-
ance of Keats's poem Endyniion, which Marzials's
workmanship closely resembled.

The third of the British Museum youths to be
mentioned here, but really the eldest, the most
accomplished, and the earliest lover of the Muses— r-

196 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

"the last shall be first" — is Arthur O'Shaughnessy,
a man with the most sensitive temperament, and the
strongest artistic faculty among them, though with
less literary facility. He did not, however, touch
one with any lively interest, although he had some
surrounding of admirers, one of whom, Nettleship,
an artist by determination, in spite of the lateness
of his beginning, illustrated his friend's first volume
wMth remarkable inventions showdnsf distinct imao-ina-
tive power. Nettleship had published a book on
Browning's poetry, an enthusiastic eulogium, the
first evidence that the difficulties of Browning's style
and scheme of writing, as well as thinking, would at
last tell in his favour. The first time I met Nettle-
ship w'as by invitation, W'ith others, to inspect a
portfolio of his drawings, some of which were very
extraordinary attempts to represent supernatural and
unrepresentable ideas. Two of these were life-size
heads of the Jupiter Olympius type, with the mighty
envelope of hair, only not adequately drawn ; one of
these was smiling blandly, the other with great tears
like solid marbles such as gods may shed— only they
never weep — rolling down his cheeks from closed
eyes. These were, he said in a jaunty, off^-hand
voice, " the Almighty rejoicing he had created the
world, and the Almighty w^eeping over the existence
of evil, despite himself." It was astounding to find
a man drawm to apply himself to painting dealing
with such subjects ; one could not resist respecting
him, at the same time having to warn him off" meta-
physics, as Thornton Hunt warned myself when I

xii THE RISING GENERATION IN POETRY igi

told him I was reading in that quasi-science, about
the time I first visited his father,

Nettleship's speciaHty was really wild animals.
D. G. R. gave him a commission, paying him well
beforehand ; but the way in which he performed it
was as extraordinary as the drawings of the Creator,
which I shrewdly guessed were inspired by the
anthropomorphism of Blake. A year and a half
after the commission was given a child of the
" Marchioness " species left with Mr. Nettleship's
compliments a roll of dirty paper cut into by the
string that tied it and dog-eared at the corners — a
disreputable roll it appeared, for I was present when
it happened to arrive. This being undone, disclosed
to view a rude water-colour of two lions lashing
about enormous tails and grinning at each other as
if they were laughing — presumably at D. G. R., who
had commissioned the drawing.

Another aspirant belonging to the O'Shaughnessy
choir was John Payne, an able man in various ways,
whose Gallicanism was as pronounced as that of
the B. M. set. It was, however, independent of
Swinburnian example and influence, his knowledge
of early French poetry being as intimate as his
acquaintance with Musset, Baudelaire, and others
whose heavy odours charmed those young men who
spent their innocent lives between the office desk in
the B. M. and the quiet lodging in a neighbouring
street. If they were not fast in practice they could
at least be fast in literary tastes. Another jaunty
tenet they all held was aji for ai-f s sake ; what

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

matters the sense, motive, or morals of a poem, if it
is beautiful ? Art above everything ! One of them
called the year of the Franco-German war (that war
that changed the face of Europe, reversed the
position of the two countries, ensured the independ-
ence and unity of Italy, and broke the power of the
Papacy) " the year when Regnault died." To
return to Payne. I thought him at once one of those
who develop. I do not mean that Payne will rise
into the highest regions of poetry, but that he will
show an intellectual advance through life, perhaps
even of a surprising kind.

Entirely unconnected with this coterie, if I may
so call them, there came within my knowledge at
this time several other men more worthy of a leaf
of the laurel —

The rod of marvellous growth, the laurel bough.

The first was perhaps Austin Dobson, in his
nature one of the most amiable of men, and con-
sequently most charming of friends. By a natural
bias, however, giving himself up to the celebration
of the eighteenth century, and to the writing of vers
dc socu^tc\ he is sure not only of popularity, but of
celebrity, every one of his little poems being so
perfect of its kind. Another was Philip Bourke
Marston, an able sonnet-writer ; a boy of the class
we speak of as born to do some wonderful thing,
had not Providence made him blind from his birth.
But the more I mention, the more I ought to name.
Verse-writing and the study of poetry, not only our

XII THE RISING GENERATION IN POETRY 199

own of the beginning of the century, and of the
generation now gradually passing away, but of the
classic and the early poetry of the world, has spread
rapidly of late years. The vast advance begun by
Wordsworth and Coleridge, and varied by so many
developments up to about 1825, has not ceased for
a single year. My own contemporaries, the stars
of the first magnitude among whom are so often
mentioned in these pages, were and are much more
learned than those leaders at the opening of the
century, and now at the present writing, every little
writer of yerse is a more expert critic than any
editor of a century ago. Imagine Coleridge in his
early little book publishing a dozen sonnets or so
under the name of Effusions and applying to Lloyd
or to Charles Lamb for help to fill up his meagre
volume. This increase of educated ability is indeed
not confined to poetry, it has spread over all litera-
ture, as every leader in every penny newspaper can
prove ; but in other fields it is nearly unmixed gain,
while in poetry the case is altogether different. The
more knowing the aspirant is, the more imitative he
is, and the less he depends on original powers,
invention, and knowledge of life. The form becomes
all-important to him, and there is no form of verse
native or exotic, however artificial and silly, but it
will find adherents, men or women who have nothing
to say. This has therefore become the age of
literary poets, every year giving out innumerable
green i2mos, perfectly well done in the eyes of
their authors, but without vitality or any raison

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

d'etre. To be sympathetic human creatures with
eyes in their heads and hearts in their bosoms, to do
and to fee], to know something of the men and
women about them, is not necessary to them. What
is necessary is only to read and write ; reading and
immediately writing is the amusement, and in great
measure the work of all of us, and writing, with-
out something urgently requiring to be said, ends
in imitation, restoration, selection. The important
question becomes. How is it to be done ? Is it to be
a sonnet ? — Is the verse to be anapaestic ? — What
will the schoolmaster say ?

The ladies as yet have not come out so strongly
in verse as might have been expected, considering
the novel-writing powers they exhibit, but that may
be because the publication of poems is not very
remunerative ; still I know whole households com-
peting with each other. A pretty sight, but not so
safe as bezique to short tempers, nor so economical,
if the desire to appeal to the public supervenes as it
generally does, keeping up the large annual amount
of money thrown to the printer's devil.

In Dr. Lonsdale's honest little Life of Words-
worth, in the fourth volume of the Worthies of
Ctnnberland, we find him quoting a letter of the
poet to Archdeacon Wrangham, wherein he says
" he had not spent five shillings on new books for
five years." How would our numerous decorative
poets of 1879 get along under similar privations,
being left, in short, to the imaginative faculties God
has allotted them ? This cultivation from without

XII THE RISING GENERATION IN POETRY 201

has given us a new critical term, whereby to dis-
tinguish classes, and we speak of the " Literary
Poet," without the offence implied by the word
poetaster.

This popular extension of knowledge of the
forms of poetry has another result, altogether satis-
factory. If poets have become more numerous,
their audience has still more greatly extended. The
" Literary poet " is the professional critic, and abetter
informed auditory happily makes his verdict of less
effect : the majority of his readers have or presume
they have as much knowledge of the matter as he
has himself. Thus we see The Light of Asia, and
Lang's Helen of Troy, and other able works, have
taken their important places without the presumptive
help of dailies or weeklies, as far as I have observed,
but simply from their intrinsic value.

CHAPTER XIII

MV POEMS PUBLISHED 1875 ALMA TADEMA MY

D EDI CAT 10 POSTICA

Finding an expectation on the part of my friends,
old and new, that I would print my poems old and
new, and so give some evidence of my powers,
little or great, in that now so popular art and mystery,
I began to think such a thing reasonable. The
younger men knew me only by hearsay as a poet at
all, so I began preparing the book ultimately issued
in the beginning of 1875, illustrated by AlmaTadema
and myself. I find in a letter from D. G. R., about
the end of 1873, some allusion to this intended publi-
cation. What I tell him of my present stagnation
surprises him, he says, as he has always been used
to view me as beating him hollow in constant
occupation, which is much less his plan of work
than mine. However, he thinks somethino: is cominof
of it before long.

At an}^ rate such a moment is the very one for such
a piece of work as doing justice to your poetical chances
once for all ; thus a moment when regular occupation
is slackened may be made quite as seriously serviceable
as any other to the mass of your life's productiveness. I

CHAP. XIII 1875 VOLUME OF POEMS 203

think there is no doubt whatever that the thing- to do is
to collect old and new poems together. As to vignettes,
the plan you name is much the prettiest as in those
Stothard and Turner books of Rogers's, and would really
be worth doing, but liable to delay matters perhaps. I
think there is nothing so uncomfortable as thick separate
plates in a book of poetry, which should be easy handling.
That last splendid ballad {Lady Janet May Jeaii) should
not lie idle, but should be got out. It should, I think,
stand first in your volume, unless you think some pleasanter
subject more attractive to open with.

Having amused myself by preparing some
designs, I held by the intention to pubhsh my poems
as an illustrated book. This was, I am sorry to say,
a mistake, as it narrowed the number of buyers very
certainly, and changed their character. However,
having set my affections on making a set of small
etchings, I once more missed my aim, lured away
by another fancy. These etchings I finished in the
studio at Penkill in the summer of '74, when Tadema
and his wife, the amiable Laura, joined our party.
He was a little hipped with hard work, and wanted
repose, which he found in The Old Scotch House
and its glen and garden. I had brought down with
me sixteen little plates, and was etching the first
one when he arrived and made his first appearance
in our new studio, when he offered to do some if I
would help him in the technique, in which I had
already in London given him a forenoon's lesson.
He went into the task in the most friendly spirit,
working in his impetuous way while I sat with him
revising the text, and Laura made pen-and-ink
sketches of us. He did his best, but partly by being

204 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

new to the process, and partly by a difficulty in
understanding poetry in English, — and to say the
truth, I was never sure that he quite made out what
any of the poems was about, — his aid was not so
efficient as it might have been ; and alas, my amiable
critics attributed the appearance of that highly
popular artist in my book to a desire on my part to
bolster up my now inadequate powers of pleasing.
At the eleventh hour also I conceived the idea of
makinof the book record mv attachment to the three
friends with whom I had been for some years most
intimate, and with whose poetical successes I had
most sympathy ; and to do this I added a dedicatory
sonnet at the end, inscribed to Swinburne, Rossetti,
and Morris, which was similarly interpreted. To say
the truth, I printed this sonnet in a purely friendly spirit,
and not by any means to imply any inferiority either
poetically or socially, but to express the fact that I
had published nothing for upwards of twenty years.
But it pleased my critics to understand it differently.
The helpful Tadema was not long about his
friendly aid ; his health, too, was quickly restored,
and he became the loudest and most overpowering
of housemates. It was of as little use to protest
against his robustness as to advise him about his
designs ; his vigour became boundless, and his good
humour endless. He was up long before anybody
else in the house, was heard struggling with the
great door, and after a cessation of all sound for half
an hour or so, during which he had had a bath
under a waterfall twenty feet high, his voice was

ALJl/A TADEMA 205

heard calling on his wife and every other person to
look alive. I suppose this was his habit at home.
In the evening we finished up by whist, which he
now played for the first time in his life, though he soon
began to lay down the law to the others, who knew
the game pretty well. He made a number of rapid
little pictures, leaving a space for the figure which
was to give them value ; and the certainty of hand
so exhibited, and the unerring instinct, w^ere delightful
to see.

I call it instinct, because Tadema really does
fortunate things in his works without consciously
intending them beforehand. Such is the artist by
nature, nascitur non Jit, endowed with another sense
as it were. A sound mind in a sound body, troubled
by no metaphysic, believing in no intellect or more
soul than can look out of the actor's eyes, he is the
most successful man in the world, and in some sense
the happiest. A functionary for all the world and
for all times alike is the painter, the giver of pleasure
to those to whom thinking is repulsive. This sphere,
that of representing life by externals, is narrowed
the more our education advances. The more scien-
tific and analytical our education becomes, common
life conforms the more to great regularity of habit,
rejecting on the one hand ideals, on the other
picturesqueness, in both of which the painter
deliohts. These are left at last to him to deal with
only on canvas.

When the Tademas left Penkill, Miss Boyd and
I accompanied them to Edinburgh. He was greatly

2o6 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

pleased with some of the pictures in the National
Gallery there, especially those by living artists of
the Scottish School. Noel Paton's " Oberon and
Titania," and George Harvey's ''Columbus," on the
first sio-ht of the New Continent at the moment of
revolt among his marines, pleased him immensely.
This last picture represented Columbus, not as a
splendid, heroical Guy, but as buff-coated manhood,
hardy enough for anything. Sir G. Harvey was
one of my oldest friends, and Sir Noel Paton one of
my newest, so we called upon both. The first was
then President of the R. S. A. We found him
broken down by long illness, but still genial and
pleasant ; the other was absent from town. We
also visited James Ballantine, who had sat beside me
drawing from the antique forty-five years ago, and
who had also attained now an ample material success,
visible in the carriage standing at his door, in which
he had just returned from church, the day being
Sunday. When I introduced Taclema, it was evident
Ballantine had never heard of him, which macie the
visit not so great a success as it might have been,
but this faux pas over, we stayed and lunched, the
addition of four guests not incommoding the ample
family table. These two visits I was afterwards truly
glad to have accomplished, if even in an accidental
way ; very shortly afterwards both of my old friends
died. Both of them were men, not simulacra of
men ; they had taken a strong grip of life as well as
of art in their several ways. Harvey's Covenanter
pictures showed his conscientious sympathies, and

ALJ/A TAD EM A 207

opened a new page of history which his audience
throughout Scotland thoroughly rejoiced in ; and
Ballantine,, in the Gaberlimzie s Wallet, which Lord
Cockburn says in his Life of Jcffi'ey, " Robert Burns
would not have been anxious to disown," added to
the literature of the country.

We parted from Tadema and his dear wife at
the railway, they taking their places to Newcastle to
visit my friend, James Leathart, and see his collec-
tion, and we returning to Penkill. The next day
took place that singular dynamite explosion on board
a boat on the Regent's Canal opposite their house.
The boat was lying under a stone bridge, which was
blown utterly out of existence, and the line of houses,
of which Tadema's was one, were all more or less
WTecked and shattered. This house had employed
his powers of ornament for a number of years, and
had gradually been transformed from an ordinary
citizen's habitation into a sort of miniature palace, or if
you like it better, a " make-up of trumpery," as G. E.
Street characterised it when called into consultation
as to its repair. Here is the note in which Tadema
informs us of his misfortune, which, however, does
not prevent his trying his powers at punning on my
initials W. B.

TowNSEND House, ^th October 1874.

My dear Bubble-you-D — I am sure you and Miss
Boyd especially must be anxious to hear from us. How
conceited this sounds ; but never mind, I am' conceited
and half-ruined. Not in health, you know, as Miss Boyd's
and my nymph's hospitality [the nymph of the waterfall
where he took his morning bath] have saved me in that

2o8 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

way, but in material possessions. Luckily bones and
pictures arc safe, though doors and windows and roof are
gone. We received the news in Newcastle, where we
enjoyed your friend's hospitality. We enjoyed the castle
too and Durham, which is nice, but not paintably so.

The mob here is mad, for they all sing the new song
of the " Poor Creatures of the Explosion " of Regent
Park. Thousands of people come and go ; cabs and
carriages without end. We are rather badly housed, as
every door and window is barred with boards. The
children are at Devonshire Street, and the governess
brings them every morning to stop the day with us. The
scene of desolation is a very wide one, the disaster ex-
tending at least for several miles. How we are not more
hurt I cannot understand. Of course our blue china is
singularly diminished. The ceilings are dropping, and
marked a great deal. And now I will direct this to Miss
Boyd in case you are gone ; that kind lady will have
news of us at least. — Ever yours, L. A. T.

Mrs. Tadema appended a nice little note :

I must squeeze in a few words to say, dear Miss B.,
that really our delightful visit to your castle has made my
husband so strong and well able to endure our sad trouble.
It would have been too much for him two months ago. —
So much love and so many thanks from yours affection-
ately, Laura.

My volume of poems, with etchings by myself
and four by Tadema, was published in 1875. Its
Dedicatio Postica to the three poets and most in-
timate friends mentioned so often in these pages
brought them to me in a way curiously characteristic
of each. Rossetti wrote me at once, with much
earnestness, showing a careful perusal, pointing out
critically things good and bad and such poems as he

XIII 1 875 VOLUME OF POEMS 209

most esteemed. The letter is dated from 1 6 Cheyne
Walk, 3rd May 1875. To make his amusing com-
mentary on the dedicatory verses fully intelligible, I
had better copy the sonnet here :

DEDICATIO POSTICA

Now many years ago in life's midday,

I laid the pen aside and rested still.

Like one barefooted on a shingly hill :
Three poets then came past, each young as May,
Year after year upon their upward way,

And each one reached his hand out as he passed.

And over me his friendship's mantle cast.
And went on singing every one his lay.

Which was the earliest ? Methinks 'twas he

Who from the Southern laurels fresh leaves brought,

Then he who from the North learned Scaldic power,
And last the youngest, with the rainbow wrought
About his head, a symbol and a dower —
But I can't choose between these brethren three.

From D. G. R.

My dear Scott — I have got into a habit of ac-
knowledging welcome poetry by letter, which should not
be foregone because we are likely soon to be meeting.
Your book is welcome and goodly beyond others — the
real result of native unforced powers, struggling manfully
and successfully through every fissure of a rocky life. I
have read old and new with equal pleasure, and I had no
idea till now (when the whole spread before one gives a
clear view) of what extraordinary beauty exists in some
of your earliest pieces, even when open to fault-finding.
The Ode to Keats is well worthy of him ; that to She/ley
second to it, but still good ; the Fable is a little master-

VOL. II P

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

piece in its way, and the piece called Midnight admirable,
though here I recognise (perhaps) its finest passage as an
addition. The Four Acts of St. CutJibcrt delighted me
greatly on re-reading. All these pieces are replete with
wellbeing, clear-breathing youth ; one is glad to see such
work not lost at last. I never knew that AntJiony be-
longed to the same early period. It is among your finest
things, in spite of an unkempt quality which (as it seems
to me) might easily have been called to order. This same
matter, I must confess, disturbs me somewhat throughout
the volume, though much less in the sonnets and other sus-
tained metres than where greater irregularity of structure
requires one to keep one's eye on the ruts, and guard against
a jolt. When you come to a second edition I should like,
if you thought it worth while, to glance with you over my
copy, in which I have marked some of the more decided
instances. A trifle here and there might be registered as
actual errata. . . . Many alterations in old poems seem
to me questionable — more than questionable some of
those in Morning Sleep and the Monody, the former of
which I think much injured. Of the " Studies from
Nature " the finest are Midnight and S?mday Morning
Alone, the latter not to be surpassed in its way. The
Dukes Funeral is quite equal on its own grounds, though
necessarily less poetical. The Requiem too must not be
forgotten, and here the changes seem beneficial. . . .
Among the Ballads the one which, to my mind, stands out
from all the others as a very piece of your Scotchest self,
is the Witch's Ballad. This I admired absolutely from
the first, and I believe it is now even better. There is
here a truer sum of the quintessential qualities which
really make Burns's humour what it is, than could be found
in any direct follower of his ; and the much that there is
besides makes the piece utterly your own, and I suspect
unique in the language. Lady Janet May Jean strikes me
as things do when they are intricate in their nature, and
have never before been seen properly, but only heard or
hastily deciphered in MS. I think it could hardly be

1 875 VOLUME OF POEMS

understood at a first reading, if thoroughly even at a last ;
but I fancy if some decisive explanatory touches — putting
the reader on the track of the dream -structure of the
poem — were introduced with a firm hand in one or two
stanzas following stanza i, and some slight alterations
(which melody as well as clearness renders most advisable)
made here and there throughout, this objection might be
removed. [Here follows much analytical criticism of
great value to me if I ever print the poem again.] I see
I have been dwelling at some length on — I will not say
objections, but critical impeachments not passing the
point of query. You know what I think of the vigour
and originality of the theme and its treatment, and of
the extraordinary beauty of many among the varied
burdens.

Among the Sonnets the speculative ones are still, on
the whole, the finest, I think, and probably are unrivalled
on their own ground. I must not forget the Dedicatio
Postica, an adjective, by the bye, on which Latinity seems
to cast a rather lurid light ! Regarding this sonnet I
would almost venture to suggest that line 9 appears
hardly in a final state. If chronological doubt hovers
round its subject, I think that —

Who earliest ? I should rather think 'twas he, etc.,

or else —

Who earliest ? On the whole perhaps 'twas he, etc.,

might be a racier form ; but if, on the other hand, some
certainty could be arrived at, it might even be safe to say —

Who earliest ? By nine years or so, 'twas he, etc.,

only it is true that thus the initials of the heading would
seem rather out of their natural sequence.

Pardon a moment's chaff, my dear Scotus. Thanks
warmly for my share in your generous dedication — as
good a title to goodwill assuredly, as my poor memory
will have to show — and one which you have bestowed at

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

the pretty certain risk of some responsive bespatterings
from the scavengers of the /r^j-j'-gang. However, yours
is a book which has its place, and cannot be robbed of
it. — Ever affectionately yours, D. G. ROSSETTI.

I had, indeed, somehow or other placed the
initials of the youngest (A. C. S.) first, and so given
rise to this last reflection. Swinburne was in bed
when the book reached him, by the hand of a
friend, who found him unwell. In a few hours,
however, his cab drives up at my house, and I hear
his voice on the stairs : " Where is he ? Let me
see him. I want to speak to him at once." I was
unwell myself, lying on two chairs in the library,
when in rushes Swinburne. "Tell me now, mon
c/ier, tell me exactly what you alluded to as the
rainbow wrought about my head ! " " Well," I
said, " you know you are hailing in the new time
hopefully ; you are assisting the advent of the
brighter day ; you are wTiting Songs before Szm-
riseT "Ah ! is that all ? I was in hopes you meant
the glory of my hair, that used to be so splendid,
you know ! "

The last of the three, William Morris, was in
no such hurry, but after a few days came the fol-
lowing :

HoRRiNGTON HousE, bth JSIiiy 1875.

My dear Scott — I must ask you to forgive me for
letting a week go by without taking any notice of the
gift of your book ; but I do think you remember that I
am a bad letter-writer even on ordinary matters, and often
on extraordinary ones a helpless shamefacedness holds
me back till I find I have committed an act of rudeness

1 875 VOLUME OF POEMS 213

as now, which I am very far from meaning. I trust
to your good nature to understand that, and to for-
give me.

I was very glad to see your book, with the poems
that I first found so sympathetic when I came up to
London years ago, when I was pretty much a boy ; and
also that there were others that seemed to me as good,
of which I have heard nothing meanwhile. Pray believe
that I was touched and delighted by the affectionate
inscription in the beginning, and though not more so (in
some sense) by my share of the dedication at the end,
yet as much, amidst my surprise at the honour of it ; for
indeed, I did not suppose you would have put me in the
same place with A. C. S. and D. G. R., both of whom I
consider for the most part as " passed masters " over me in
the art.

I am sorry we have seen but little of each other for
so long. I was thinking of coming in one morning next
week to see if you would come over here some evening
soon, and meet Ned Jones. I was very vexed that my
Welsh engagement kept me from coming to you that
evening you asked me. . . . With hearty thanks for your
book and its dedication. — I am, yours affectionately,

William Morris.

Having thus recommenced quoting the letters
of friends, I may add something of an interesting
one Rossetti wrote to Miss Boyd half a year later
from Bognor, where he was living under the care
of George Hake and Theo. Watts in a state of
health which has been represented to me by these
gentlemen as even alarming, but of which there
appears not the slightest symptom in the letter,
which was dated at Aldwick Lodge, Bognor,
Sussex, 3rd November 1875. They had been for
some little time here, he says, hitherto chiefly idle

214 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

after i^etting through a new picture in London. He
has taken the house they are inhabiting for an
indefinite time, and will possibly keep it till the end
of the year. It is within one minute's walk of the
sea-beach, which is a fine one ; the sands like a
carpet at low water ; and he has been meaning to
write Miss Boyd a line ever since he had an oppor-
tunity of showing her picture of " Taliessen " to
his friends in London, who admired it greatly.
(This picture of Al's, her ckef d'oeuvre perhaps,
had been sent to the studio from the Dudley
Gallery, where it was exhibited. It represented
the tradition of the Welsh bard hearing his deceased
master's harp playing by itself as it hung on the
wall.) Of course Rossetti reckons on going on
with his work here, getting both the " Venus
Astarte " done, and the " Blessed Damozel," for
Mr. Graham. His delay in leaving town had had
the good result of keeping him for a visit from an
appreciative amateur, who had given him the com-
mission for this "Venus Astarte," at the price of
2000 guineas, so that he starts fair with the paint-
ing. He is, however, first finishing a new work for
Mr. Leyland, from Coleridge's lines —

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw.

As to poetry, it seemed to have fied from him,
and indeed " it has no such nourishing savour about
it as painting can boast of, but is rather a hungry
affair to follow." Nevertheless he means to write

XIII LETTER FROM D. G. ROSSETT! 215

some more poems yet, and good ones too. He
says he was greatly pleased to hear from INIoncure
Conway that the Yankees have got an edition of
W. B. S. as well as the Britons, and asks if they
have adopted the etchings also. (This was a mis-
take, I am sorry to say. There was no American
edition of my poems.) Towards the end of his
letter he says he has sat with poised pen for a
minute or two, thinking whether more news were
in the air or not ; but no breath responds. They
see almost.no one, and when they do they learn
nothing worth report. He will take much interest
one day seeing Miss Boyd's portrait of Scotus,
" Poor Maggie " (his sister Maria, who was then
entering an Anglican Sisterhood, and who died
about a year and a half later) " is parting with her
grayish hair next Sunday, and annexing the kingdom
of heaven for good."

In a postscript, nevertheless, he says he is forced
to reopen his letter to tell what he designates a
wondrous tale. Some four years ago G. F. Watts
(R.A.) painted a head of him for v/hich he only
gave that artist two sittings, and which remained
unfinished. His impression of it was appalling,
though possibly from the exactness of its likeness,
and people have ever since kept telling him it was
horrible. Accordingly he executed a cottp de main.
He finished a spare chalk drawing, and sent Dunn
with it to Little Holland House, sending also a
note saying that he should be very much obliged
if Watts would make an exchange, as he wanted the

2i6 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

picture, not for himself; and that the bearer would
call next day at same time for it to save trouble.
"This resulted," he continues, "in my getting the
picture next day, though Watts's note with it
showed plainly that it was even as a tooth out of
his jaws. Now that I have got it, I really think
it very fine, and am quite ashamed to have played
him such a trick. — D. G. R."

After our return to town in 1875, the Tademas
left for Rome, whence he wrote me some letters
amusing and interesting in some degree, and filled
with the exuberant spirits that distinguished him-
self. He was now elected an Associate of the Royal
Academy, and in reply to my congratulation says,
"Of course for the honour I feel greatly obliged,
but I feel more so when friends tell me they believe
in the schools there my experience can be of some
use for the coming generation." This he has cer-
tainly proved. His mastery over the difficulties of
art is greater than that of any other man I have
known. His command over the palette is like a
miracle, yet his powers only give him pleasure when
extrinsic evidences are awarded him. Now he
could make a necklet of orders and crosses for his
wife, and still wants more. The other men of great
power in art I have known have never thought in
this way. One day I asked Burne-Jones if he had
been awarded a Medaille d' Honnciir, as I had heard.
His reply was: "What does it matter, my dear
Scotus, whether they give one a medal or not, if one
can't do what one tries or wishes to do ; and I can

XIII PERSEVERANCE AND GENIUS 217

only come near what I wish, and am unhappy in
consequence,"

Thinking over this and other observations, all
going to prove how much we inherit our mental and
moral individualities, and following out this train of
thought, I may add my conviction that it is essentially
vain for the most of us to labour to accomplish what
we cannot do by natural endowment ; in short, to
aspire after artistic excellences as objects of ambition.
Anything really worth doing in the arts, including
poetry, must be in absolute harmony with ourselves,
and come easy to us. I remember Tadema passing
sentence on an aspirant highly recommended to him.
On my asking him why he thought he would never
do great things, " Because," he replied, "he had no
awe of me, showing he had no respect for art." This
was the moral aspect of the same question. I must
say, I have always from the first seen what every
one of my acquaintances would or could do, and, if
he lived for a thousand years, would continue to do.
In the spirit of his work, I mean — the essentials.
" Diligence and perseverance accomplish every-
thing," as Reynolds says; but I would add, "in
what can be acquired " ; they ensure comparative
success, and a good share of turtle soup ; they fill
professorships and academies ; but if any whose en-
dowments are these, and no other, is troubled by
" the last infirmity of noble minds," he will find they
do nothing for him. Time will most certainly dis-
close the difference between the real and the automatic,
between inherited and acquired mental possessions.

2i8 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

This conviction of the ultimate uselessness of
endeavouring to do greater things than one is bound
to do — of learning and acquiring from without by
ambitious labour — is detrimental to success in life,
of course ; it is a great hindrance, it makes a man
more a spectator than an actor, especially if he is
indifferent to the vox popnli. But the part of
spectator, however pleasant, is dangerous besides.
Bacon has said that in this universe of life " it is
only for God and His angels to be spectators " ; and
in all that conduces to material well-being, or to the
fulfilment of a man's duties to the world or to his
family, he may be clearly right — diligence and per-
severance being the wings that carry us forward in
all improvement ; and what would come of history
without the continuous advancement in civilisation ?
But confining myself to personality, I have another
conviction, resulting from temperament, no doubt,
which makes me question Bacon's aphorism, and limits
my respect for perseverance in one exclusive path.

This other practical virtue I would discredit, or
rather limit, in the conduct of life is not persever-
ance pure and simple, but that negative kind of it
constantly recommended under the form of the pro-
verb, " Let the shoemaker stick to his last," — the
avoidance, in short, of dispersing one's forces by
following various attractions. If the shoemaker
sticks to his last he may, it is to be hoped, make
good shoes ; but will he, after all, make the best
possible shoes ? Further, if he never tires of his
last, his soul must have had originally, or must have

XIII PERSEVERANCE AND GENIUS 219

contracted, some affinity with it — must be more or
less a foot-shaped and Hgneous soul, and what can
come of that ? To all his eternity — that is to the
end of his consciousness — he will be nothing but a
shoemaker. So it is with all specialists. If shoes are
wanted in the world where all are spectators, he will
be welcome. But possibly the angel-spectators may
not need shoes, and in that case will not care about
the society of the man who has exclusively stuck to
his last. Perhaps the spectator class here below are
qualifying themselves to become angels ! The clever
practical fellows about us generally hate reflection,
which is the food of the spectator. Thoreau the
American, we are told, invented or perfected some
valuable improvement in the trade to which he was
apprenticed. Thereupon all his friends said, " Now
Thoreau will make his fortune"; but Thoreau said
to himself, " Now I leave this manufacture off: I have
done all that can be made of it : I need not do the
same thing over again," or something to that effect.
He would not go round and round. None of us have
too much time for culture and discipline ; he turned
to cogitation and found his life more harmonious.

It is this sticking to the last, this limitation, that
makes a strong man within a narrow sphere : the
smith's arm is strong, but then it is the strongest part
of him, and he is a hireling, a poor devil, whatever
amount of money he may accumulate, and though he
is made baronet or lord. What if our performance, by
concentration of our abilities, is the best that can be
done in that way ? Is the performer wiser, better, or

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap, xiii

more beautiful ? Yet common prudence is always
howling against turning from one study to another, from
one love to another, from one form of art to another.
It may be few can do this without losing their way,
coming to grief; it requires tact to hold half a dozen
lines without allowing them to tangle, or to ride six
horses as they do in the circus. Trying to sit on
two stools is thought to be likely to land one on the
ground ; and I am far from supposing that a certain
amount of success is not necessary to peace of mind
and well-being, or that a wise man should die poor.
Carlyle — than whom no able shoemaker ever stuck
more closely to his last — once thought he would like
some routine post, and applied for the appointment
of Astronomer for Scotland, as if that was one ! In
his account of the transaction he acknowledges that
he never had looked through a telescope in his life.
Nay, he affirms that he is sure he could do anything
or everything he chose to do, from making a hut to
building a palace ! One wonders what he would
have set about on being elected Astronomer for
Scotland. By concentration and limitation he was
great, but on meeting him closely we found him
almost a monomaniac ; and there is this to be added,
he enjoyed life less than most men. For myself, spec-
tator and even somnambule as I am, had I to re-live
twenty or thirty years of the past, I would say with
the pedantic gentleman in an old play trying to make
love by teaching astronomy, " Let us turn round the
celestial globe once more ! " Then, I own, I believed
in myself as poetically nascitiir non fit\

CHAPTER XIV

HOLMAN hunt's PICTURE "THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT,"
NOW CALLED "THE TRIUMPH OF THE INNOCENTS "

After all this wisdom, deduced from my experiences
of life and perceptions of my own character, I may
return to my friends. Holman Hunt returned from
Jerusalem with his wife and son, and his new picture
of the "Flight into Egypt," or "Triumph of the Inno-
cents," in the spring of 1877 ; and I went to lunch with
them one Sunday after they had got partially settled.
The dear, serious, successful, and yet in some degree
disappointed man I found, after his long absence,
the same as ever. No change could possibly take
place either on his art or himself, except the change
of years : on myself I could not detect the effect of
advancing" age, but I saw it on all my friends ; and
they generally told me they were surprised they did
not see it on me. I suppose the cause of this im-
mobility was that I now took all things easy, having
reached a table-land, and contented myself with the
before - mentioned character of Spectator. With
Hunt it was not so. He was more than ever an
anxious man — spoke of going again for a month or

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

two to the East to finish his picture ; meanwhile
he had taken a studio here, and begun struggling
with certain difficulties resulting- from the canvas, a
Syrian cloth, on which he unfortunately began his
picture.

Among others, Millais dropped in with his two
daughters, his eldest and youngest — the eldest now
close on twenty, very handsome, as might have been
expected. I had not met him for many years,
except once, and that was at the funeral of John
Leech, where he was one of the pall-bearers, with
manly tears filling his reddened eyes ; and in him
now it was easy to recognise the old nature, always
happy and at ease, but with a great development
into the affirmation of success and worldly wisdom.
In me he professed to see no change ! I asked him
who the young lady was^was she really his daughter ?
"Yes, she is one of my girls — the eldest; did you
think she was my wife?" he answered in his old
chaffy way. " She is going over with me to Paris
to speak French for me : I can't parley-vous at all
now." When he first appeared in London, he and
his parents had come from the Channel Islands, and
he was bi-lingual ; but having little care for conver-
sation or reading — liking, indeed, everything else
better, such as going out with Leech to the meet-
ings of hounds, or shooting, or whist — he must have
lost his French — if he had really lost it — from disuse.

He did not say so — perhaps was generously
afraid Hunt might feel that he too should have been
included in a similar compliment — but I heard after-

XIV S//^ JOHN MILLAIS 223

wards that he was only going to Paris, the Interna-
tional Exhibition being open, because of an invitation
from a party of artists who proposed to present him
with an honorary memorial of some sort. He had
had Carlyle for two sittings to paint his portrait.
The philosopher of Chelsea turned round upon him
on the stair of his new house, which is said to be cjuite
a scala del giganti, and inquired, "Has paint done
all this, Mr. Millais?" On being answered, with a
laugh, in the affirmative, Carlyle continued, "Ah,
well, it shows what a number of fools there are in
the world ! " A very amusing anecdote of Millais
was told me by F. B. B., worth record because it is
about as characteristic of the painter as the other is
of Carlyle. A Frenchman, who had caught sight of
a handsome cook Mrs, Millais had, became trouble-
some in his persevering attentions. The cook com-
plained, as well as Mrs. M., and Millais warned him
off the premises. The Frenchman could not
comprehend, bowed himself away, but immediately
reappeared, just as they were all sitting down to
dinner. Millais caught sight of him ringing the
area bell, rushed out of the room, collared the per-
tinacious offender, ran him up to the top of the street,
and over against the railing of the new Natural
History Museum to be, where a crowd immediately
collected, the poor man volubly and breathlessly re-
monstrating. Millais retreated home, after explain-
ing his position hastily to the crowd ; but it was
worse at home, where all the ladies of the house-
hold laughed him to scorn !

224 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

The next Sunday Hunt and I walked over to
Battersea to find a model he wanted who lived
there. On the way we talked of the old times of
his struggle to be a painter, a time he was fond of
dwelling upon ; and I was pleased to find that but
for Millais he would have given up the battle and
gone, most probably, to be a farmer with his uncle.
Both the old Millais explained to Hunt that their
son John had told them how sorry he was to let
Hunt abandon painting, and that they seconded
their son to the full in the plan of lending W. H. H.
money as long as he required it. At last they
prevailed, and for a long time, about three years I
think, till "The Light of the World" was finished,
this generous scheme took effect. Even then his
difficulties did not cease, of course not, as he was
in debt and anxious to repay, and Gambart could
scarcely be brought to give him ^400 for that
enormously successful picture, as he averred that
sacred subjects would not pay in this country. The
accomplishment of his first Eastern journey was
again the cause of debt, and when he brought
back the " Scape-goat," an eminent picture-dealer
would not look at it. "You have no business to
paint animals," said he; "the Scape - goat ? I
never heard of him, is he a Syrian creature } What
will the public care for a Scape-goat?" Hunt
explained that every one in Great Britain knew all
about it, that the Scape-goat was a type of Christ,,
a kind of sacrifice of atonement, and that if Mr.
had read the Bible he would have known.

HOLM AN HUNT 225

that too. " Bible, Bible ! well, well, there are two
English ladies in the house ; I will call them in and
we will see if they know anything about this Scape-
goat." The conclusion of the interview was very
amusingly told by Hunt. The ladies were not sure
that they had heard about the Scape-goat, but at
last the picture was bought for a moderate sum, and
the publication succeeded in a way, but not so greatly
as " The Light of the World," which Gambart in a
court of justice declared had yielded him a thousand
pounds a year for a series of years.

Hunt continued to struggle with his picture,
which would not come right, and had in consequence
a severe illness that reduced him to death's door,
and forced him to take a long holiday. After this
he began again. On the last day of the year 1879,
having been all the intermediate time labouring
fitfully and nervously with his bewitched canvas, he
sent his man with a pencilled note in hand, request-
ing me to come to his studio in Manresa Road at
hand in my neighbourhood to see the picture. I
had never asked to see it, thouoh I had heard it
said that it had been secretly seen by some friends,
and I immediately went there. My curiosity as to
his treatment of the subject, and my growing anxiety
as to the prolonged technical difficulty, were great.

I found him in a state of suspense and suppressed
excitement, his temperament being one that showed
no emotion in ordinary ; even when taken by surprise
he would show no signs of such being the case. He
is in fact one of the kind who seem to count twenty-

VOL. II Q

226 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

five before replying to any unexpected interrogation.
Now he said that I would see his work was far from
finished, but he had determined to show it to me
first of all, a compliment for which I thanked him. I
was surprised to find he had stepped out of his usual
form of invention altogether ; not only leaving the
realities of Oriental life, but introducing supernatural
actors and appearances. He still indeed retained
the Syrian costume on the Virgin and Joseph, and
the ass on which she rode with the child in her
arms was a Syrian ass, but he had surrounded the
orthodox group with a running dance of many very
elaborately-painted children, whose heads and bodies,
and, to speak more exactly, their feet also, were
surrounded with a bright phosphoric nimbus. There
was something exceedingly charming in this
rhythmic accompaniment of the Flight, in this very
vividly and solidly painted troop of bright creatures
wreathed with flowers, and carrying palms and
lilies, of the same age as little Jesus. Besides, they
seemed there for His amusement and delectation.
The treatment of the halo as an inborn phosphoric
light shining outwards, which mesmerists have
affirmed to be sometimes visible in real life, is here
introduced with great effect. Little cherubs or
amorini employed in natural actions have been
often brought into pictures of the Flight into Egypt
by the old masters ; and I accepted these super-
naturals as such, although they had no wings. Some
of them expressed joyful emotions, but others were
represented with the flaccid helpless character of

HOLMAN HUNT 227

quite new-born things. The light and shade too of
the whole picture struck me as a confusion between
sunlight and moonlight. Up to the time of my
present writing the picture has never been exhibited ;
but some day or other it is to be hoped it will be
visible to all the world, so I shall not further describe
it ; I have only done so so far as to explain the
correspondence which followed. He had also
startled and grieved me by relating a preternatural
incident, or something like one, that had happened
to him a few days past, on Christmas Day. Reflect-
ing on these matters, I wrote him next morning.

My dear Hunt — I have thought a great deal about
your picture and cannot help coming to the conclusion
that it will be a perfect success. This is a very bad day,
otherwise I would venture to call again and offer you, or
press upon you, it might be, a criticism on the lighting
of your picture, particularly of the angels (?). I want to
speak more from a poetical point of view than as a
question of pictorial treatment. You have lighted them
not by any natural means, as they are brightly- lit when
the rest of the scene is in partial moonlight, lit in a
preternatural way, receiving light as they would in their
native region — heaven, I suppose, — "of such is the kingdom
of heaven " ; to fleck them with shadows as if from inter-
rupted sunlight is not therefore allowable.

Thus I wrote, with more to the same effect,
enlarging on the treatment in other respects. I
ended with an allusion to the apparition, if I can so
call it, when nothing was visible :

I have related your strange adventure on Christmas
Day to the ladies here, my wife and Miss Boyd, and find
them curiously interested. Would you mind writing me a

228 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

few words to sa}- how you knezv no one was in the house at
the time ? What o'clock was it ? Yours seems a common
cast-metal stove ; if riveted, it seems such stoves some-
times crack or throw out a rivet with a tremendous noise,
if intensely heated. — My dear Hunt, ever yours,

W. B. S.

The picture had now been under his hand a long
series of years refusing to come right. In his frame
of mind he had come to beheve not that the Vvorld
was in league as his enemy, but that the cievil
himself was fighting against him. In two days
I received a painfully interesting answer to my
note, recounting the incident at length. I was
wrong in my precipitate conclusion that the num-
erous charmingly-painted children were angels ;
he had a much more original idea than that stale
one : they are the souls of the innocents massacred
by the orders of Herod. I must insert his letter,
which enters fully into both subjects, and is, indeed,
one of the most interesting and charming letters
I have ever received.

2 Warwick Gardens, Kensington, W.,
^th January iSSo.

Mv DEAR Scott — It was very good of you to write
to explain your impressions of the points in my picture
which invite reconsideration.

The first question about the light on the supernatural
figures I debate thus : The children must be so treated
that they shall not be mistaken for infantine angels of
heaven or amoretti, which previous illustrations of the
subject would lead people to expect to find them to be.
The beings I want to represent really differ in this, that

HOLM AN HUNT

they have only just left this life instead of having got
altogether established as celestial creatures. Some of
them, if not all, may indeed scarcely have altogether lost
the last warmth of mortal life. It seems desirable, there-
fore, to avoid a treatment which would make them like
the angels who regard the face of our Father in heaven.
A support to this view I find also in the desirability of
avoiding to distinctly pronounce the figures to be either
subjective or objective. I wish to avoid positively declaring
them to be more than a vision to the Virgin conjured up
by her maternal love for her own child, the Saviour, who
is to be calling her attention to them. Having got so far
in my reading of the conception, I rely for the next step
upon what, to use a presumptuous phrase, I will call my
experience of the embodiment of ideal personages. These
develop in solidity and brightness by degrees, and I
imagine the Virgin to have seen these children at first,
scarcely discerning that they were not natural figures
under the natural light which illuminates the other sur-
rounding objects, until, with longer examination and
recognition of the individuals as the neighbouring babies
of Bethlehem, the more distinctive parts of each figure
become lighted up with the fullest light, and as a full con-
solation, she sees the glory of their new birth. The division
of the two — the natural and the supernatural illumination
— cannot be avoided, but when the picture is completed,
I think the light on the duller parts will be more ethereal
in effect, and therefore less separated from the brighter.
The criticism about the immature development of the
ankles I will attend to in some way when I get to these
parts again.

The story about the unaccountable noise, you will
remember, I gave as an illustration of the degree to
which the difficulty with my picture has distressed me.
For four years this torment has been going on, wasting
my life, and health, and powers, just when I believe they
should be at the best, all through a stupid bit of temper
on the part of a good friend. I don't like to hold him

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

responsible, although his agency caused the beginning of
my difficulties, but I have got into the way of thinking
that it is one of many troubles during these seven years
(balanced by much joy of my last four years) which the
Father of Mischief himself only could contrive. What
I told you is only a good story, as my impressions give
the experience. It is not evidence, remember, one way or
the other, although I give the exact truth. I was on
Christmas Day induced to go and work at the studio
because I had prepared a new plan of curing the twisted
surface, and, till I could find it to be a practicable one,
it was useless to turn to work which I had engagements
to take up on the following days. When I arrived it
was so dark that it was possible to do nothing, except
with a candle held in my hand along with the palette.
I laboured thus from about eleven. On getting to work
I noticed the unusual quietness of the whole establishment,
and I accounted for it by the fact that all other artists
were with their families and friends. I alone was there at
the group of studios because of this terrible and doubtful
struggle with the devil, which, one year before, had brought
me to the very portals of death ; indeed, almost, I may say,
beyond these, during my delirium. Many days and nights
too, till past midnight, at times in my large, dark studio in
Jerusalem, had I stood with a candle, hoping to surmount
the evil each hour, and the next day I had found all had
fallen into disorder again, as though I had been vainly striv-
ing against destiny. The plan I was trying this Christmas
morning I had never thought of before the current week,
but it might be that even this also would fail. As I groaned
over the thoughts of my pains, which were interwoven with
my calculations of the result of the coming work over my
fresh preparation of the ground, I gradually saw reason to
think that it promised better, and I bent all my energies
to advance my work to see what the later crucial touches
would do. I hung back to look at my picture. I felt
assured that I should succeed. I said to m\-self half
aloud, " I think I have beaten the devil ! " and stepped

HOLM AN HUNT 231

down, when the whole building shook with a convulsion,
seemingly immediately behind my easel, as if a great
creature were shaking itself and running between me and
the door. I called out, "What is it?" but there was no
answer, and the noise ceased. I then looked about ; it
was between half-past one and two, and perfectly like night,
only darker ; for ordinarily the lamps in the square show
themselves after sunset, and on this occasion the fog hid
everything. I went to the door, which was locked as I
had left it, and I noticed that there was no sign of human
or other creature being about. I went back to my work
really rather cheered by the grotesque suggestion that
came into my mind that the commotion was the evil one
departing, and it was for this I told you the circumstance
on the day of your visit. I do not pretend that this
experience could be taken as evidence to support the
doctrine of supernatural dealings with man. There might
have been some disturbance of the building at that moment
that caused the noise which I could not trace ; indeed,
I did not take pains to do this. Half an hour afterwards
I heard an artist, who works two studios past mine, come
up the stair, and before he arrived by my door he said
to some one with him, " It is no use going in, it is as dark
as pitch," and they went down again. This was the only
being that came to my floor during my whole stay, which
was till 3.30. I perhaps should have taken more pains
to explain the riddle, but while I quite accept the theory
of gradual development in creation, I believe that there
is a " divinity that shapes our ends " every day and every
hour. So the question to me is not whether there zvas a
devil or not, but whether that noise was opportune, for I
still hope that the wicked one was defeated on Christmas
morning about half-past one. Thus, you see what a child
I am ! — Yours truly, W. HOLMAN HUNT.

To me the state of mind here indicated, though
I respect it so much, is so foreign as to be impossible
as an experience ; but in this, again, I recognise our

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

mental conformations are inherited even like our
family likeness. I consider humanity as an organised
portion of nature, only with the power of self-con-
templation which separates it from all other organisms
and places us over the rest of the physical world, so
that life is to the human creature a preordained fight
with every object we meet from adolescence to the
grave. This fight is for self-preservation and for
self-advancement. I hold that progress, mental and
bodily aggrandisement, and ultimate victory in the
course of time in this world, is a law of the nature of
a being with self-conscious powers. Religion gives
us ideals; science gives us command; morals give
us justice ; arts, beauty ; medicine preserves and
improves the body ; civil law defends us against
ourselves. But out of or beyond this controlling
egoistic order of advancement there is no good
thing ; out of or beyond nature there is nothing at
all but God, space, and time.

Does this end in a platitude } Let me try to
explain myself, and save my attempted wisdom from
so appearing. Our latest acquisitions of knowledge
go to show us that the farthest star is like this world
we live in, chemically and elementally, and subject
to the same necessities and activities. Life, there-
fore, throughout creation is presumably physical, and
only possible by the same means as with us. And
in the second place, all attainment of an organic sort
is a performance perfected by processes requiring
millions of years by progressive steps. Many
millions before vegetation covers the earth as grass ;

HOLM AN HUNT

many, again, before any kinds of four-footed creatures
live by eating other kinds. We see that the tentacle
after millions of years becomes a fin associated with
a spine ; and that is clothed with feathers as a wing ;
and again with hair and claws as a forefoot ; and
again the articulation is freed into fingers, and the
hand of man with all his upright anatomy results at
last — a result which must have been preordained
before the manifold transformations began, in or by
some Divine force. But in all this — the scheme of
nature, which is a scheme of life — there is clearly no
room for a devil or a ghost till we ascend to the
intellect. Out of the intellect only they can come ;
they are therefore not entities, but ideas. This
scheme of progressive or creative energy we call
Nature ; outside or beyond this we can predicate
nothing save the Divine force we name God, Space,
and Time.

Since that time, January 1880, I have seen him
many times. He has abandoned the so troublesome
canvas, and copied the whole picture on a fresh one ;
but still the difficulties in his way follow him, even
on the new and sound English double canvas. The
good friend he alludes to in his letter was his friend
of many long years, F. G. Stephens, who had
simply made the mistake of using too large a box,
which he jocularly called Goliath. This large box
could not travel by any means of transit known to
the stony roads in Palestine ; its address and key
had both been lost, and it was laid away at the sea-
port till by accident Hunt saw it after nearly a year.

234 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap, xiv

The "joy" he mentions experiencing during the
latest four years of the seven was doubtless his second
marriage, which has really been his salvation by the
amiability and helpfulness of the noblest of women.

On one of my latest visits I determined to say
what I had long thought, that his difficulties were
imaginary, not caused by the canvas, but in his own
overworked or over-anxious brain. He took the
remonstrance in good part, answering with a gentle
smile that he knew too well all the different causes
of the trouble, and alluded in a distant way to the
incident of Christmas Day, acknowledging that the
influence, of whatever kind it was, had not yet been
fairly banished. Very shortly after this, I must add,
his brow cleared ; his picture went all right ; it was
finished ; both pictures were finished admirably !

CHAPTER XV

SPIRITUALISM

The unpleasant subject of mesmerism, table-rapping,
or spiritualism, qnid sit nomen ? has turned up in
these pages now and then ; ugly enough I may
describe it, like one of the misshapen things in the
Dutch Temptations of St. Anthony, yet I would like
finally to introduce it again after the interesting
relation of the preceding chapter, and the faith in it
held by D. G. R. and others already noted. The
incident in Hunt's studio was somewhat similar to
asserted phenomena among spiritualists, but it was
totally different, inasmuch as my dear friend Hunt is
a sincerely orthodox believer, whereas the so-called
spiritualists have neither faith nor philosophy worth
inquiring about. The absurdity of men who do not
believe in any hereafter calling up the dead is so
great that it needs only to be mentioned to be
laughed at, and it is clear that if the visitation of the
souls of the deceased can be credited, it must be as
a belief dependent upon other dogmas, and resulting
from faith in new life endowed with full conscious-
ness and memory of the life here. A new revelation

236 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

would be necessary to give authority to any scheme
of future existence supporting this vulgar, sensuous
intercourse ! However, putting all absurdities out
of the question, the direct power of one mind over
another is very great and obscure ; there may be
much yet unknown within the ordinary bounds of
human nature.

Twenty-five or thirty years ago, when my series
of pictures from the History of the English Border
was in progress, a young relative of Sir Walter
Trevelyan returned from India, sold out of the
army, and was much with us both at Wallington
and at Newcastle. He was a clever and amusing
addition to the circle. He was bitten by the evi-
dence of great fortunes being made in the iron trade
in these parts ; lost Jiis fortune at once by investing
it in a failing concern ; and on our migration to
London we saw him from year to year, finding him
always promulgating astounding schemes for retriev-
inor himself. He went to South America to catch
wild horses, a scheme he kept to himself till his
return after failure. Next he came in for a family
legacy, and left us, again disappearing for a series
of years.

In the summer of 1878, when preparing to leave
town, a card was brought to me with his name in a
new form, the maternal name being incorporated
in full with his own, and beneath it, instead of an
address, the words. Universal Repttblic. WithotU
the dangei'-signal. I immediately rushed from my

SPIRITUALISM 237

library to meet him, and found the tall handsome
man standing in the middle of the room, perfectly
self-possessed, but literally in rags. Even in this
disguise the maid-servant had had the perception
that he was a gentleman, and treated him accordingly.
I received him after a moment's surprise as if nothing
peculiar was observable. He talked as of old, told
me he had been to America, and gave me without
reserve his experiences of the continent from New
York to the Great Salt Lake. At first he had been
in society of the best cultivation, as a descendant on
both sides from two of the most ancient houses in
the old country ; he had also associated with several
kinds of new-light sets of people, especially with
magnetists and spiritualists ; sometimes he had
laboured in the fields ; he had been told he ought
to do so, and he did ; we all ought ; why should we
let others do what we thought beneath ourselves.
At last he fulfilled his apprenticeship, so to say, and
came home ; but as he had spent all his money, he
worked his passage over. There again he conformed
to the law of human equality, and learned something
besides. He had no reservation ; he perfectly be-
lieved in spiritual supervision, but he objected to
the danger-signal! On inquiring into this, and
wishing an explanation, he would scarcely believe I
could have lived so long without being consciously
aware oftentimes that impulses or warnings were
conveyed into the mind in a moment from some
outward power. In his case this definite impression
from without, which, as he described it, closely

238 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

resembled what my dear Quaker friend called in
her pious way having a line of action or conviction
" pressed in upon her," was accompanied by a
smart pain. To this he objected. " And you see,"
he added, pointing to his card still lying on the table,
" I have said that I do not practise, and wish to be
without this momentary pain." To all this I utterly
objected, and he politely received my objections as
natural on my part, if I had experienced nothing.

He dined with us, criticised the wine, and now I
ventured to speak of his habiliments, and I asked
him where he lived. This he took frankly and in
the best way, owning that he would have better
clothes if he had any money to buy them ; but, after
all, why should he ? He had been told that all his
family and his old friends were in the opposite
camp ; he, belonging to the Universal Republic,
knew this. He found, however, that / was not
objected to ; so he had called on me. " But the
weather is warm ; one can live on amazingly little.
I have no place of abode ; this is my house, my
library, and my bed." With that he opened his
great ragged wrapper of a coat, showing absence of
shirt, but with the pockets filled with books and
loose printed papers. Seeing books, curiosity got
the better of me. I said I should like to know
what they were ; he pulled out two, left them with
me, and disappeared.

These books were American productions by
women-authors — creatures, I think I may say, bent
upon distinguishing themselves by a mixture of

SPIRITUALISM 239

imposture (conscious or unconscious) and egotism,
relying upon ignorance to overrule reason and make
them received as peculiarly gifted. One of them
was an Essay on Symbolism, the symbols having
been revealed to the authoress as a medium, and
illustrated by coloured designs of the maddest mean-
ing. One of them was called Christ zuithoiit Hands,
followed by another called Christ the Female.
These meant that doing, working, using the human
fin in any way was of no avail, but that the reign of
the higher nature, i.e. the female, is about to begin !
Man has the power of the genus Bos, and the equine
qualities ; he has had his day, the nobler spiritualism
and weaker bodily qualities of the woman are to
succeed ; the time is ripe ; she is to carry human
nature into the divine sphere. The male organism
is only the servant of the female, and once at least
in the history of the world its service has been
dispensed with already : the product of the woman
alone was the Christ ! There is a daring, if not very
charming, heterodoxy about this that indicates a
new era indeed, and spiritualism, of which women are
generally the cleverest media, is the key to open it !
A year after this, the desire to hear something
of my friend increased to such an extent that I made
inquiry by writing Sir Walter, a step I had long
meditated. No direct answer arrived, but, shortly
after, the father of my friend, whom I had not hitherto
seen, called upon me. No tidings of the wanderer
had been heard for a long time ; I had been the
latest to see him on the visit I have recorded, but

240 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

just a few weeks before my note of inquiry reached
Sir Walter, my friend's brother, passing up Regent
Street, suddenly recognised him selling flowers at
the curbstone! His brother had rushed forward
and tried to embrace him, begging him to come
home to his chambers. This the wanderer peremp-
torily refused to do. His brother would then buy his
flowers. "Take them," said my friend; "I paid
half-a-crown for them this morning ; take them for
a shilling." A half-crown was placed in his hand in
exchange for the flowers, but he threw it down, and
fled. The result of this dreadful meeting was to
increase the alarm of the family to such an extent
that they took a house in town, and so the father
had been able to call. He thought, as I seemed
less tabooed by his son, that I might be able to
assist in finding him ; but I had no clue. His only
plan now was to be always everywhere about, on the
chance of meeting him. The world of London is
large, but exhaustible. Walking with little hope in
one of the parks in that June weather he saw his
son sittinof on one of the seats ; he could not be
mistaken ! Cautiously he advanced, and cautiously
addressed him ; a singular meeting, the second
indeed in the short history, and this one had a better
result than that in Regent Street. He promised to
see his mother, and to do so consented to go to the
tailor first. Me he has never called upon again,
and I have never ventured to ask for information,
his state so nearly resembled madness. I only
know that his father had placed a sum of money in

XV SPIRITUALISM 241

a bank known to his son, to which he could apply.
He was like a madman, yet he was not mad ; his
whole nature was changed by spiritualism. He had
impressed me as a modern John the Baptist.

The difference between persistent enthusiasm
and monomania is often extremely slight, and difficult
to define. In the East Holman Hunt met a man
in whom they were very closely combined, who
followed him to England, where Hunt took so great
a liking to him that he took charge of him for years.
Monk was this old man's name, a rather handsome,
innocent, large, white-bearded man. While Monk
lived with Hunt he painted the enthusiast's portrait,
calling it "The Prophet." Monk did not pretend
to that character, but devoted his whole life to the
formation of a new society of the Faithful, which was
to own and inhabit the Holy Land ; this was like
forming a rope of sand. The first time I saw Hunt
after the correspondence about the great noise be-
hind the picture, he asked me if I remembered
Monk, and produced a letter from him, now in the
East again, or rather a circular, requiring all who
received it to give up to the writer a tenth of their
entire property to form a fund for the purchase of the
sacred soil. Hunt had declined this fanciful pro-
posal, and spoke of old Monk with a clear enough
perception of the true nature of the character ; but
he had just had a visit from Ruskin, who had
received a similar letter, which he had signed with
an intention to conform to the demand. I have
never heard that he did so.

VOL. II R

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

About the same time Alfred and Anna Mary
Watts came to live in Cheyne Walk, and so joined
our Chelsea society. Mrs. Watts — Anna Mary
Howitt of the old time — was now a neat little
elderly lady with plenty of white hair, as pretty and
vivacious — what people call bright — as ever, and
both were as much attached to spiritualism as
before. She had become vegetarian, and so closely
adhered to her programme that she objected even
to eggs. This, she believed, made her less bound
by the body, more free of the physical trammel, and
she had given up painting a long time, though she
still had some of her little water-colour drawings,
inspired by the spirits, hanging on the walls. Mrs.
Lynn Linton told me a curious anecdote of the old
Mrs. Watts, who died a year or two ago. One
forenoon she found the old lady spinning a top on
the large dining-room table. At first Mrs. Linton
came to the conclusion that the poor soul had lost
her wits, but Mrs. Watts turned upon her saying :
" Do you wonder why I am spinning a top ? But of
course you do. I am only amusing the dear little
children ; the room is full of them, and they like
nothing so much as to see me spin the top ! "

It was instructive to see the enthusiastic girl
who went to Munich to study painting, and wrote
the A^d-Sttident in Munich, changed into the idle-
handed, passive woman of fifty-five, with all the
sweetness and gentleness still left, listening not so
much to you as to the empty air. I found her one
evening sitting by the drawing-room fire alone.

SPIRITUALISM 243

looking at the flames ; not a book or newspaper, or
fancy work, or piano, in the apartment. Suddenly,
however, I found the inherited literary ability in
both her and her husband, as vivid as ever, by their
book of poems called Auro7'a.

This little volume with the significant name is, to
my mind, the best outcome as yet of the spiritualism
of the day, full of beautiful things beautifully said,
though the light in it is the moonlight giving sharp,
but doubtful visions, in which the true colours of
material things are lost.

But enough of this : it would not have appeared
in these notes at all, but that so many times I have
had this spiritualism or kindred states of mind
forced upon my attention, even by some of the
ablest men mentioned in my story.

CHAPTER XVI

DEATH OF G. H. LEWES AND GEORGE ELIOT OF

R. N. WORNUM OF SIR WALTER TREVELYAN AND

LADY PAULINE.

The years 1878-80 have furnished me with a great
many recollections, and I must still recur to them ;
they were the most fatal to my friends of all the
years of my life. Lewes and Wornum, Sir Walter
Trevelyan, Thomas Dixon of Sunderland — Carlyle
at the beginning of 1881 — and many others, not to
be mentioned here, all passed away. All these
have already appeared in these pages ; to carry out
my principle, preserving my interest to the last in
all the friends whose intimacy has been dear to me,
I must place them again on my record, and close
the story of each.

On the last day of November 1878 Miss Edith
Simcox — Lawrenny as she signed herself in the
Academy and other journals — thinking, very kindly,
that she ought to be the first to inform me, wrote
to my wife that Lewies was dead. She and George
Eliot (Mrs. Lewes) had become inseparably attached ;
she had been at their house, the Priory, daily. I

CHAP. XVI G. H. LEWES 245

was his oldest literary friend now living, she said.
The feeling that I was much to blame living so apart
from him, took possession of me. He is nearly
the only man among all my friends who has never
ceased to advance. At first he was only the clever
fellow, but at a very early time he became the
literary adept, then the able investigator, and lastly,
the scientific thinker and philosopher, one of the
most trenchant and advanced minds in the science
of this country. The day was an aguish drizzle
characteristic of the season, but in a sad frame of
mind I went to leave a card at North Bank, and
returned not the better of my excursion.

We use the w^ord genius in a very loose way.
It has a meaning always comparative, yet we use
it as if its signification was definitive and fixed.
To Lewes we would not apply it, and yet his.
mental powers were inherent, not cultivated. He
set about learning any language necessary, or any
science he chose, and never missed an experiment,
never forgot a word or a proposition. This was
partly or primarily no doubt because his memory
was retentive, but no sooner did he possess himself
of a science or language than he used his knowledge
in such a manner that the men who had been all
their lives occupied with that single subject, ac-
knowledged him their comrade. At the time of his
death I had not seen him for many months, a year
perhaps it might be. They had then called
together ; it was the first time George Eliot had
been in my house ; she was evidently occupied at

246 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

the moment with houses and furnishing ; they had
just got possession of their new place in the country,
and she was much interested in our new abode, with
its many reception-rooms. He was so too ; there
was the sort of self-complacent feeling between us
of two old fellows who had not stuck in the world,
but had made some considerable way since we
used to meet in my first studio, which was a room
up two stairs in Edward Street, Hampstead Road,
where we talked well into the night, as youngsters
do, but on the wisest and most recondite subjects.

It was remarkable that only a few weeks before
I had made an etching from a pencil sketch done in
Leigh Hunt's house in Cheyne Row, I think, one
evening when he and I met there, nearly forty
years ago. The pencil sketch was slight, but it
conveyed the bodily semblance and characteristic
action of both Hunt and Lewes — Hunt, with his
face well raised, with a quantity of hair he con-
tinued to part in the middle, that made him look a
large-headed man, as indeed he was, having found
other men's hats, including those of Shelley and
Byron, would not go on his head ; and Lewes, a
fidgety little fellow, stooping forward in an inquisi-
tive, interrogating attitude. The only other person
in the sketch, besides myself, was Vincent Hunt,
then a boy, whose death was a grievous blow to
Hunt in his later years. I now wish I had shown
this etching to Lewes. His advancement in learn-
ing and position was carried out by advancement
also in temper and person ; he would have been

XVI GEORGE ELIOT AND CHELSEA 247

pleased probably with this memorandum of the old
time, and so might George Eliot, but I was not
sure enough of this to venture placing it in his
hand. The reason I did not was that he used to
be called the ugliest man in London, and his poor
little wife of that day was one of the prettiest. My
etching, however, does not exhibit his plainness
particularly. They had been buying a billiard table
for their country residence — not, as he explained in
a doubtful accent, to play himself, but for guests on
a rainy day. Now I am the only one in this sketch
remaining in the land of the living.

George Eliot did not forget the impression she
carried away of our house, and the view of the
Thames we had. Not long after the death of
Lewes she took the mansion at the other end of
Cheyne Walk, in which Daniel Maclise painted his
latest picture, and we congratulated ourselves on
having her added to the Chelsea circle of friends
as Mrs. Cross. By this time we had been about
ten years inhabitants of that locality, and very much
attached to it, finding it in many respects like a
quiet country town, although it is an integral part
of the busiest and o-reatest of cities. Old-fashioned
shops are the rule, many of them kept by the same
families for several generations. Everybody knows
something of everybody else ; there are coteries
without the exclusive feeling, great people like the
son of Shelley, and the grandson of Byron, settled
near each other, and the esoteric junto of the
privileged, artists and literati. There were also

248 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

the public characters of a country town. The old
woman who called watercresses ; the groggy old
gentleman whom the boys waylaid, and induced to
chase them with his brandished stick ; and the
ancient barber, too, who actually still had daily
customers whom he shaved, was to be met on his
beat, with brush, comb, etc., peeping out of the
pocket of his snow-white apron. On Monday
mornings my wife witnesses a different indication of
provincial habits. Calling on the grocer with a list
of household items wanted, she finds the incumbent
of the old parish church (the charming old church
where the great Bible is still to be seen chained on
its reading-desk, as ordered by Henry VIII. for the
use of the public) with piles of copper money before
him, which he and his parishioners count out into
shillings on the counter, getting silver instead, and
expatiating on the fact that there were two half-
crowns and a five-shilling piece in the plate yester-
day ! Is it not charming that in London we are
still in this idyllic life ? — But Mrs. Cross was not to
enjoy it.

After her death some of the daily wTiters, who
produced the overstrained notices of her career and
eenius, omitted all mention of Lewes. She was
said to be great in philosophy, and wise beyond
measure, but the mention of her instructor was not
to be tolerated for the sake of propriety. An
amusing revelation of the difference between the
conventional style of the printed eulogium and the
private verdict, is afforded by a reported conversa-

R. N. WORNUM 249

tion with Carlyle on the adoption of George Ehot
by the ignored Lewes long years ago. " Ah ! George
EHot is a female writer of books like myself and
himself. I got one of them and tried to read it, but
it would not do. Poor Lewes! Poor fellow!" were
the words with which the " philosopher of Chelsea "
eased his mind.

With Ralph Wornum the close amity of the early
day when he, Tom Sibson, and I spent every
Saturday night together over a male life study of an
hour and a half, and a glass of toddy or punch after
it, was never disturbed. He became lecturer to
the Government Schools of Design, and on his visits
to Newcastle was my guest. On one occasion he
found me painting the trial of Sir William Wallace
as rebel at Westminster, and gave me a study from
his own Herculean arms and chest, and I found him
possessed of a nearly perfect human form, only a
little too fleshy. My picture was a rather imaginary
piece of British history, but I afterwards discovered
a subject from the same story of a sublimely dramatic
character. The execution of the hero took place on
a day of the Fair of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield,
so that the hurdle with the doomed patriot, the
executioner, and a little John Bull of an officiating
sheriff, passed along among the zanies and quacks
and dumb heads of heifers. Another fine subject,
of a quite different kind, I have often thought of, if
the R. A. had ever treated my pictures with a grain
of consideration. This was the marriaee of dear
Albert Dlirer, and was suggested on my visit to

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

Niirnberg by the loveliest of backgrounds in the
"Bride's Door" of St. Sebald's Church, with its
decorative statuettes of the wise and foolish Virgins ;
Durer having been married in the parish of St.
Sebald. Imagine Agnes in her good and pretty
young days, and the strangely interesting Albert
himself, and old Wolgemut, and Albert the old, and
the boy's godfather, the printer of the chronicle !

This muscular power and beauty of Ralph
Wornum did not save him from a comparatively
early break-up in his general health. One day I
had my fellow-examiners from South Kensington to
dinner, and Wornum came to meet them. He had
long parted with the department for the position of
Keeper and Secretary of the National Gallery, under
Eastlake, who procured his appointment, so pleased'
was he with Wornum's solution of the difficulty that
he, Professor Long, and some others, were at the
moment troubling their heads about, whether Claud
Lorraine was in boyhood a baker of pies or a painter
of pies — pistor or pict or.

#J/. -^ M. M,

■IV- TT' -TS" TV-

W ^ -TV "7^ Iv^

The night of that dinner-party, if I remember
right, was one of the thickest fogs of the London
season, so thick that no cab or carriage ventured
out, and Wornum had to expose himself to it, refusing
to remain with us all night, I am sorry to say, and
was very ill on the way home. I only saw him once
after, these being very busy years with me. He
had long determined to write a life of St. Paul,

R. N. WORNUM 251

placing, as he believed, the true character of the
apostle of the Gentiles before the literary world for
the first time. At last the voluntary labour was
completed ; a goodly volume, which had entailed
late evening labour for years, now that Greek and
other necessary acquirements for such a task were
rather fading out of his mind, and it was published
under the name of Saul of Tarsus. At the National
Gallery I met him. Mrs. Wornum, his sustaining
friend, had accompanied him from home and waited
to take him back. The strong man was giving way.
Supporting himself by leaning heavily on the barrier
protecting the pictures in the great room, he told
me he was gradually getting weaker. " I should
have taken fewer tasks in hand," he said ; " some of
them will never see the light ; Saul of Tarsjts has
conquered," This was very painful to me. Yes, it
is fruitless to fight against convictions, the accretions
of centuries. Here was my dear friend Wornum
saying again with Julian, the philosopher and " apost-
ate," Vicisti, GalilcEe.

A few months after the death of Ralph Nicholson
Wornum, Senator Schoelcher, who still retained his
villa in the neighbouring street (Upper Cheyne
Street, the street or road where Leigh Hunt lived
when I knew him), although his time was now mainly
spent in France attending on his political duties,
presented me with a similar book. He had intro-
duced himself to me as a brother print-collector. In
his house the walls from cellar to garret were literally
covered with framed engravings, from the time of

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

Schongauer to our day, his task being to find a
specimen of every engraver or artist whose name is
preserved in a dictionary, and his object in so doing
was to present the collection at last to the Ecole des
Beaux Arts. He, too, had discovered that Saul of
Tarsus was unworthy of his place in the calendar,
and he had then (1879) published in Paris Le Vrai
Saint Paul, sa vie, sa mo^^ale : a labour prompted by
a conscientious desire to disclose the truth, which
shared the same fate as Wornum's larger and com-
pleter criticism.

The prolonged winter of 1879-80 was sadly fatal
to many old people. We counted eleven deaths
within the radius of our coeval friends, and now,
just as the cold was giving way to spring, though
still at the end of March the snow recurred, and the
icicles formed again as the snow ceased to melt, while
the daffodil persisted in opening, tidings arrived of
the disappearance of Sir Walter Trevelyan, whose
acquaintance and employment made to me the most
important milestone in my life journey, the vieta
ultima marking the end of the hard and harassed
period of my uphill labours and family misfortunes,
and the beginning of a continual excitement, and
the pleasure of many years of success in the pictures
for Wallington and other gifts of fortune. He was
eighty-two — a good age to live up to and to die at,
the age at which it is well to die ; and he died after
one day's illness, which is also well. When I saw^
him, even for the first time, his aspect was that of
indefinite age, and no change was visible upon him

XVI SIR WALTER TREVELYAN 253

to the end. He was a man of the coolest tempera-
ment, yet constantly active in many minor pursuits
that did not strain his intellect, only kept it occupied,
avoiding excitement of every kind, preserving as a
duty the normal equanimity of his pulse ; always
well in health, which he attributed to avoiding
stimulants. Two years ago he fell by stepping on a
frozen pool hidden under a thin carpet of snow,
putting his shoulder out and endangering his life,
and now on the last flying storm of the " sullen rear"
of another winter he dies. Of the three charming
places he owned, Nettlecombe Court in Somerset,
a lovely Elizabethan mansion in an ancient deer
park, full of comfortable warmth ; Seaton-by-the-Sea
in the genial climate of Devon, the property entered
under the family name in Doomsday-book, he elected
to live all the year round at Wallington in Northum-
berland, where the fierce weather killed him at last.
Now and then he continued to write me, and to en-
close a mass of printed papers of all sorts referring
to the small reforms and benevolent objects always
occupying him, and his last communication, exactly a
month before his death, was very characteristic. He
says, "This is the longest and severest w^inter I
remember without any appearance yet of its ending ;"
and he encloses a paper by Combe "On Voluntary
Distortions," reprinted from the Phrenological Journal
of forty years ago, for distribution by Sir Walter ;
" Argument for a Popular Veto on the Liquor
Traffic," by Sir Wilfrid Lawson ; a reprint of Lady
Pauline's review of my Memoir of my brother ;

254 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

his own pamphlet " On the Alcohol and Opium
Trades"; "Bishop Selwyn and the Maine Law " ;
" On the Purity of Beer and Cider " ; " Correspond-
ence with Thomas Bewick on Certain Birds" ; and
other things. All these were of the driest character.
He had no humour ; in this respect unlike his brother
Arthur, whose tract in the shape of an advertisement
of " Death and Company's Foreign and British
Spirits," gave a glowing account of their deleterious
qualities, ending with a '' Nota ^£??Z(?— Sacramental
wine always on hand!" When his nephew Alfred
became Roman Catholic, much to the chagrin of the
head of the house, one day Sir Walter was showing
us some curiosities in his museum ; among other
things he drew out of a cedar-wood cabinet a drawer
of human bones picked up in the Catacombs. The
convert lifted them, drawer and all, to his nose, and
called out, " Oh, they have the odour of sanctity !
they are the bones of martyrs !" The face of Sir
Walter, expressing impassivity struggling with sup-
pressed derision, was a study, but at last he said,
without any perceptible change of voice, "The
odour is that of the cedar-wood drawer, my boy."
I was glad to have the note I have mentioned,
althoueh it was loaded with such a mass of matter
for the waste-basket, ending as it did with a hope
that I would come to see him, and find " The Way
to Wallington," thus quoting an old electioneering
song of his father's time, when the intimation of his
final departure came so soon after.

I like to preserve a record of the last of the noble

XVI SIR WALTER TREVELYAN 255

old patrician whose action on my life was so bene-
ficial, and so shall transcribe a letter Captain Perci-
val kindly wrote me on the occasion :

W'ALLINGTON, \St April I 879.

Dear Mr. Scott — You will, I know, like to hear
some particulars respecting the end of Sir Walter Tre-
velyan, of which event you have already heard. It appears
he had caught cold about a week before ; but on the day
before his death he was well enough to propose driving
over to Hallington, and only put off so doing as he thought
it might be too cold for his lady.

That night he had a shivering fit : Lady T. wished to
send for the doctor, but he would not allow her. He went
early to bed and slept a couple of hours, when he suddenly
woke up and said, " Tumours are forming on the lungs."
The doctor was immediately sent for. He came about
eight on Sunday morning, found the pulse quiet, nothing
wrong with the lungs, he thought, only a slight tendency to
bronchitis, but not to cause alarm. He left declaring he
saw no occasion to return that day.-"^

When the post arrived, after reading his letters, Sir
Walter dictated an answer to one of them ; Lady T. left the
room for only about five or six minutes to write this out ;
when she returned he was gone ; his eyes were closed, his
hands crossed on his chest, there was no sign of a struggle
or a pang ; he appeared to have passed away in sleep.
You will be sorry to hear that poor Lady T., who at first
could not realise the fact, is now seriously ill, and from
one cause or another has now congestion of the lungs.

The funeral took place at Cambo on Thursday, when
he was carried to his grave by his tenants, of whom up-
wards of a hundred attended, in the face of a terrible

1 It would have been highly interesting to have made a posf-
inortem, so as to ascertain whether the tumours had really formed.
Perhaps at that moment Sir Walter, like the " Seeress of Prevorst,"
had internal vision.

256 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

snowstorm, which added a cruel wildness to the scene. I
remain here till Lady T. is quite out of danger. — Believe
mc to be yours sincerely, G. R. Percival.

P.S. — 2nd April, five o'clock P.M. — I regret to say the
doctor, who has just gone, thinks the state of Lady T.
very critical.

Evening. — I open this to say, all is over.

This was the second wife of Sir Walter, Laura
Capel Lofft before marriage — not the dear and
admirable chatelaine of the period of my intimacy
with Wallington. How different they were, the first
and the second ladies who reigned there ! Pauline,
my never-to-be-forgotten good angel ; small, quick,
with restless bright eye that nothing in heaven or
earth or under the earth escaped ; appreciative, yet
trenchant ; satirical, yet kindly ; able to do whatever
she took in hand, whether it was to please her father
in Latin or Greek, or herself in painting and music ;
intensely amusing and interesting to the men she
liked, understanding exactly how much she could
trust them in conversation on dangerous subjects, or
in how far she could show them she understood or
estimated them. This was intensified by the want of
humour and imagination in Sir Walter, which must
have been a grievance, but was only perceptible as a
secret amusement to her. When I knew her first I was
not learned in the female character, my own wife being
the most difficult of human creatures to understand.
She soon saw through me, and was the best of
friends. Always amiable and often com|)Hmentary
to strangers, towards me she had the appearance of

XVI SIJi WALTER TREVELYAN 257

severity, rating me for pride, for ignorance of the
world, for conceit in things below my mark, as she
too kindly said, till at last her young niece, then
called Kitten, remonstrated, thinking her more cruel
to Mr. Scott, who was making so many pictures for
the hall, than to any one else ! She had been
married at nineteen or less, had lived in Rome after
marriage, and travelled on mule-back in Greece with
her husband, the most self-centred, unaffected, hicjh-
intentioned man I ever knew ; and she became in
many respects in perfect harmony with him. She
was a true woman, but without vanity, and very
likely without the passion of love.

When Sir Walter died he had a volume nearly
ready, called Selections from tJic Literary and
Artistic Remains of Pauline Jerniyu Trevelyan,
one of the essays in which was the review of my
Alemoir of my brother, reprinted and enclosed in
the last letter of Sir Walter to me, with so many
other things. This book was edited by his secretary
David Wooster ; but it is to me a caput nwrtutnn, so
great is the difference often between the personality
and the prepared productions of many individuals.
Still let me copy out one of her poems that my pages
may possess something by her ;

STREET MUSIC

It was a squalid street, in truth,
Where crime and misery cowered side by side.
Where wretched infancy and ruined youth
And helpless hopeless age, swam down the deathward tide.

VOL. II S

258 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT cv

Redly the sunset came
Flickering on high, far up the blackened walls,
Less like heaven's light than that unhallowed flame
Lit by exulting hands when some sad city falls.

All through the impure air
Came sounds of grief and wickedness and strife,
Sickness and childhood moaned unheeded there.
Drowned in the turmoil of discordant life.

When high above the din
Rang the shrill bagpipes of the mountaineer !
Strains born of pastoral glen and rock-pent linn
Had joined the meaner misery walled-up here.

Coarse was the hand that played,
Without one touch of feeling or of fire,
Yet by the rugged notes were strifes allayed.
And pallid children danced amid the mire.

Oh, brother mortals, hail !
Sinful and sorrowful, yet brethren still,
Come from your loathsome dens, your garments stale.
Our inmost souls meet in that music's thrill.

I mused and passed away
From that dark street to where sweet Avon flows,
'Midst gleaming rock, soft grass, and woodland spray,
And nature's primal voice on my tired ear arose.

Go ask yon mountain rill,
Why it makes unheard music to the woods —
W^hy do the wild-flowers paint the soulless hills.
And cloud and sunbeam play over the ocean's floods ?

But what if angels' eyes
Are gazing downwards on those unknown streets ?
Ah, what if angel melodies arise
Echoing those notes far off in heaven's retreats !

XVI LADY TREVELYAN 259

For what can Art do more
Than waken childhood's feehngs by her voice ;
Make pure tears gush from founts long sealed before,
And saddened hearts obey its summons to rejoice ?

This is better in an intellectual than in a rhyth-
mical point of view, and after all I think it not one
of her best ; and the pictorial portion of the publica-
tion is very inferior to what she accomplished in
aiding the decoration of the hall. The extraordinary
Will he left kept Sir Walter's name before the public
for some time after his death. He left the authorities
of the British Museum, National Gallery, and other
public institutions, permission to select what they
chose from his collections. The director of the latter
institution went down to Wallington a few months
later to see if he could avail himself of Sir Walter's
offer. Here is Sir Frederick Burton's letter to me
on his return :

43 Argyll Road, W., z\st August 1S79.

My dear Scott — I have been down to Wallington,
and have been fortunate in two fine days there. Sir Charles
and Lady Trevelyan have been very kind and hospitable.
I enjoyed my visit, but came away empty-handed. There
was nothing placed at our disposal [i.e. of the National
Gallery) by the Will, which I felt in the least tempted to
lay claim to.

The place, its contents, and its associations, strongly
interested me. Above all, I was pleased to see again
your compositions for the hall. They are as fresh as ever;
and the imagination and thought manifested in them, the
great excellence and fulness of the composition in each,
their originality and variety, engaged me as much as when
I saw them in London — it must be about twenty years
ago. It is only to be regretted that the necessities of the

26o WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

case involved their being placed so low down ; for, although
their horizon is no doubt calculated for that position, I
think they would look better and be better seen if placed
much higher. I have little doubt you would have made
them fit the arches, but that, of course, a space to light
the passages behind was indispensable. I was also inter-
ested in the twin portraits of yourself and your brother
(these ought to be in the Scottish Academy). And again,
in the early water-colour by Rossetti.

I had so often heard you and others speak of Sir
Walter, and the whole place was so redolent of him as an
individuality, that a strange feeling of sadness haunted me,
as I, although for the first time, wandered about it, now in
other hands, and likely to undergo some changes. They
are going to make an alteration in the entrance, by push-
ing the hall and its pillars some feet forward, enlarging
the entrance hall by throwing down the partition on the
left, diminishing the size of the ante-room where the cases
of porcelain are, and so opening a way from the door
direct to the great central hall. This will be an improve-
ment, and will admit of there being an inner glass door
to keep out winter draughts. However, both Sir Charles
and Lady T. seem anxious to make as few changes as
possible.

The British Museum people took away a good many
things from Wallington : porcelain, coins, etc. A residue
of Sir Walter's museum goes to Newcastle. But the
terms of the Will v/ith its sixteen codicils are somewhat
complicated. While there I slept in that delightful room
lined and furnished with Miss Julia Calverly's work in
embroidery. Bless the dear soul, her works give more
pleasure than those of some of our contemporaries in art
are likely to do one hundred and eighty years hoice ! I
hope to get off abroad towards the middle of September ;
till then I am here. — Ever yours, F. W. BuRTON.

The " twin portraits " mentioned are two cabinet-
size pictures, one of my brother David by R. S.

xvi SIR WALTER TREVELYAN 261

Lauder, of the Scottish Academy, and the other of
■ myself by Waite, both very well executed ; they are
now at Nettlecombe Court in Somerset. The
elaborate Will referred to was unfortunate, suggest-
ing actions at law, which were, however, gradually
compromised ; the most amusing item was the
bequest of his immense cellar of wines to Dr. B. W.
Richardson, a brother in temperance agitation, to
be "employed for scientific purposes." This cellar
contained perhaps the rarest collection in the world.
Under Lady Pauline's rule wine was to be seen on
the dinner- table ; I remember a visitor on one
occasion, after a glass of the port laid down
by Sir Walter's father, offering to be a purchaser
of the whole at a guinea a bottle. Sir Walter
declined the transaction, quietly adding, " No, I
mean to have the whole carried out some day and
emptied into the Wansbeck ! " Dr. Richardson told
me when the lawyer's first letter arrived he believed
it was an April trick, but the key followed, and con-
firmed the letter.

The lists sent him included nearly thirty kinds
of wines and spirits, but a great proportion was lost
by decay of the corks. Still from sixty to eighty
dozen labelled and entered in a book appeared in
London, affording a delightful subject to the daily
papers, from one of which I preserved an extract
which I may enter here :

These were the most precious contents of the cellar as
Sir Walter Trevelyan found it thirty years ago, when he
sold the common poisons, but kept these heirlooms even

262 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

as another man might keep a bottle of aqtia tofana which
had been distilled by Rene, the Florentine, for Catherine
de Medicis. Most of it was carefully dated, and the
oldest liquid of all, the Tokay and St. George, both of
1752, were said to be bought of Edward Wortley, and
may possibly have been fellows to wine tasted by Lady
Mary herself There were Magnums of Hock of 1777,
an age, if we mistake not, hardly to be paralleled in the
most famous cellars on the Rhine itself, where the opera-
tions of the French patriots were far from favourable to
the conservation of vintages. There was Cyprus of 1762,
which we are told M. Gennadius, the Greek minister,
pronounces " superb." Sherry-sack, " of date unknown,"
may have been of a vintage consumed by Shakespeare
himself for aught that we know ; and Malmsey, also of
unknown date, duly suggests to Dr. Richardson the Duke
of Clarence. There was port of 1784, which we are
rather surprised to find was also pronounced magnificent,
though it is generally held that fifty or sixty years is the
utmost life of drinkable port wine. Some Arrack of
extraordinary age even made Dr. Richardson or somebody
else write a poem of an anti-Bacchic but still panegyrical
character. After these things dates with the figure i 8 at
their left seem quite modern and scarcely worth re-
garding.

All this wine inherited by Sir Walter recalls to
my mind a saying of his, one night when his gout
was so bad he had to ascend the stair on his knees.
I, carrying the light, suggested that he might console
himself by reflecting that he had not himself to
blame. " No ! " he rejoined, " my father and grand-
father drank the port and I came in for the gout !"

I have mentioned the laudation of George Eliot
which followed her death. That which followed on
the demise of Carlyle was almost as great, till the

XVI EFFECT OF CARLYLES "REMINISCENCES''' 263

direct honesty of speech in his Reminiscences turned
the tide of praise into something hke a howl of
execration not altogether to be accounted for. I
was on the committee to further the erection of
Boehm's admirable statue. At first the subscrip-
tions swarmed in : then the Reminiscences appeared,
and there was no more money to be got !

CHAPTER XVII

MORE DEATHS THOMAS DIXON OF SUNDERLAND

RICHARD BURCHETT SOLOMON HART

These memorials sadly portending the winding up
of my autobiographic notes, like the curfew to the
parting day, will only be prolonged by the commem-
oration of one or perhaps two more of those friends
whose names have appeared in the earlier pages. A
few years after my undertaking the Government
School of Design work in the North, I received a note
from Sunderland, very queerly spelt but rather ably
expressed, inquiring what steps were necessary to
obtain an institution in that town similar to that I
had inaugurated in Newcastle, and also expressing
some hints that the writer was agitating for a Free
Library on the plan then promulgated of a public
penny tax. Similar letters had reached me before,
to which I had replied with punctuality, as I now
did to Sunderland. A deputation was immediately
arranged, and I of course expected to find the
mayor, or an alderman, or two shipbuilders,
or other important worthies, ready to come
forward with funds and influence, but instead of

CHAP, xvii THOMAS DIXON

those, Thomas Dixon, the writer of the first letter,
and three or four other working men presented
themselves.

A little taken by surprise at first, I received
them in the same spirit and with the same attention
as if they had been the most important persons the
town could show, and was very agreeably interested
by their confessing that they were only carpenters,
and that their leader Dixon was a cork-cutter.
" Not that I could benefit by such an institution as
we want," said that gentleman, "but I want to see
my native town possess the great advantages of
having a School of Art. I have no talent, but I
know several who have, and I come to speak for
them." This was another example of a power of
self-dependence and unegotlstic manhood I had met
in the North, such as it would be vain to look for
anywhere else in England. It had nothing to do
with politics, there was neither pretence of their
ability to carry such a scheme forward nor com-
plaint against the magnates of the locality for not
doing more. On the contrary they took up the
common-sense position that people who could have
expensive teaching, and had plenty of books in their
own homes, did not need to care for public schools
and libraries, but that they, the workmen, wanted to
help themselves.

All these men I knew afterwards. One of them,
Pickering by name, was not a carpenter but a printer,
and had secretly practised design, with a view to
illustration, showing an amount of power unaccount-

266 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

able in one who had no other teaching than what he
could give himself by the purchase of a few books
such as he could afford. But Dixon was the one
who affected me most, and who continued for the
rest of his life to look upon my occasional advice
and entertainment of his ideas with a sort of proud
gratitude, all the while he was effectually carrying
out in a quiet unostentatious way schemes that made
me feel my own deficiencies as an agitator. This
letter-writing to every one who appeared to him
worthy of admiration in any way brought him in
contact and into correspondence with many illustrious
and powerful people, who, I found afterwards, had
waved aside the want of education so visible in his
letters, and had received him as a friend and equal.
Both the Free Library and the School of Art were
established in Sunderland. I must not say through
his activity, but had he not, day and night, I may
say, kept these proposed institutions before the eyes
of his own class as well as before the authorities, it
is very doubtful whether Sunderland would have
been so early in the field. Not only was a School
of Art instituted but a local gallery of pictures,
open to the public, established in connection there-
with. He it was to whom Ruskin wrote the
"Letters to a working man," afterwards published
by him. Had he interleaved his own letters
with those of his correspondent, as Dixon said
he at first proposed to do, the book would
have been more interesting and dramatic, if less
egotistic.

XVII DIXON AND WALT WHITMAN 267

Dixon had a constant habit of picking up curious
things and books of a peculiar kind, and sending
them to such of his friends as might, in his phrase,
" make a better use of them than he coukl do." He
knew instinctively what would interest certain men.
and through his agency I have received several
pieces of peculiar literary knowledge I might have
otherwise missed. One of these books was Walt
Whitman's Leaves of Grass. It was seen by him in
some quantity in the stock of a sort of peddler-book-
seller who had been in America. He sent it me ;
and I at once invested in other copies, one of which
I sent to W. M. Rossetti, as has been mentioned
previously in these notes, who after an interval of
some years brought out the edition that made the
new development known to the English public, and
largely conduced to the changed position of Whit-
man in America,

About the beginning of 1879, seeing in one of
the illustrated American magazines an article about
the author of Leaves of Grass and his book, ignoring
altogether the critical influence of England in respect
to the fame of Walt, I conceived the idea of asking
Dixon particularly how he got the copies I had from
him. His answer is worth preserving :

I will tell you willingly [he says] about the first copies
of the Leaves of Gi-ass, which are still dear to me from
the association of the man who brought them here, and
because I, at least, knew by whom Walt Whitman would
be valued. There is a plan of dealing in books called
hand -selling, which is selling by a kind of auction, the

268 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

dealers who adopt this plan not being lawfully-qualified
auctioneers. The value (upset price; of a book is gradu-
ally reduced till somebody takes it. Say it starts at five
shillings, then it is reduced less and less, till it comes to a
shilling or sixpence. A man came here at that time (I
think it must have been about the beginning of the year
1856), James Grindrod by name, following this trade, with a
stock of books that had missed their market, or had never
been rightly published at all. Long after this — long after
the American War was finished — he came back again to
Sunderland and recommenced the bookselling trade in the
old way, but his wife (from whom he had separated, though
he had left her in a comfortable way of business; being
still here, made him soon leave the town again. I was
ver>' sorry for this, because he used to bring such lots of
wonderful curious books — books you don't in a regular
way see. Since then we have never had a man like him
in this trade. He used to come and take tea with me on
the Sunday afternoons, and then I found out he had been
in the thick of the American Civil War as well as Whit-
man. He did not care to speak of his war experiences,
only my sympathy used to draw him out, for I longed to
hear how they had pulled through. He had joined one
of the States regiments, and was most part of the time in
the army led by General Sherman. He was with Sher-
man in all the fearful raids towards the end, and was often
without food, and was many times compelled to eat almost
an v-thing, however loathsome, they could find during arduous
marches in the wasted countrj^ ; he saw many men drop
down and die for want of food. " But when we did reach
the depots where food was, we were all taken very good
care of and nursed ; but I never in all my life experienced
any trial like that want of food during these raids." He
was with Sherman at the taking of Atlanta, and then he
got his discharge with others of the men who had done
the same hard ser\ice.

He would not remain in Sunderland, though he could
sell his books. He travelled about, went into Lancashire,

THOMAS DIXOX 269

and there he met his death in a railway colHsion in a
tunnel a year or two afterwards. So you now have the
history of the book.

It will be remembered that the first edition, a
large thin book with a small portrait of the author,
had no publisher's name on its title-page, and was
never seen on the counter nor in the list of anv
American bookseller. Emerson had written a sineu-
larly laudatory letter to Whitman privately, which
the latter made public as far as he could, but only in
the obscurest way ; so that we may say that but for
this travelling bookseller with his " hand-sale " of
queer volumes that had scarcely ever seen the light
of day. the Leaves of Grass might never have reached
this country at all.

The last time we saw Dixon was in London, so
lately as in July iSSo. He had saved money, and
felt himself to be independent of his trade, which he
never liked, its patrons being mainly the public-
houses and gin-palaces of the Tyne and Wear. He
was forty-nine years of age, but his thin white face,
with its rather noble profile, indicated a feeble body,
contrastino- with the laroe strono^ ficrure of his
travelling companion, Skipsey the pitman, and
author of a volume of poems possessing consider-
able charm from their expression of some features
of the writer's daily life. One of the smaller poems
of this class, called Get Up ! was considerably
quoted, and Burne-Jones, going out to stay a day
or two with the Premier, INIr. Gladstone, took the
book in his pocket and read this poem to Miss

270 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

Gladstone, which reading resulted in her father
getting Skipsey placed on the Civil Pension List —
for a very small sum, it is true, being only ^lo ; but
the honour was worth more to him. These two
good men and true were well received and enter-
tained by many illustrious persons besides Burne-
Jones and his wife, who took Dixon to see the
Grosvenor Gallery. He had just managed to make
a besfinnino- with the establishment of the Picture
Gallery for Sunderland, in which several of us aided
him. One evening he came on to Bellevue, having
just left Carlyle, who had received him, though then,
in the last twelve months of his long life, he habit-
ually resisted the inroads of all visitors. Dixon sat
down, looking tired and worn, and told me where
he had been, going on thus : " Mr. Carlyle looked
at me very sadly, and said, ' When a man lives to
be as old as I am, you see, he is about ready to go,
and willing to be done with all this turmoil about
him here.' This was his speech to me, and I am
sure his life is sad, and the words he spoke were
sincere ; he is a lonely man, and has been for long,
maybe for all his life." Saying this, Dixon's eyes
filled with tears ; he, too, felt himself a lonely man.
His wife died a good many years ago, leaving him
two sons, to one of whom I stood godfather. The
elder of these became a sailor, and was washed over-
board in a storm ; the other resisted the education
his father wanted to give him and took himself off
to Australia. I sympathised profoundly with this
middle-aged man, old before his time, as well as

THOMAS DIXON 271

with his friend Skipsey, able-bodied and slow, con-
tented with his fate, feeling it in his own hand,
happy with his crowd of children and the mild
appreciation of a few friends more cultivated than
himself.

He was to leave London next day, and in a
week or so after he suddenly died — simply ceased
to exist when the servant had left his bedside after
o-ivino; him some breakfast. The information came
to me from William Brockie, as admirable a man as
either of these, and, it may be, abler ; an Oriental
scholar who has published some really compre-
hensive and enlightened short expositions of Hindoo
philosophy, badly printed and unnoticed, their author
living among men who take no note of such things.
D. G. R. was much affected by the disappearance of
the excellent Dixon. He wrote me on the occasion :
"He was a good man if ever there w^as one. I fear
poor Skipsey, who is of a tougher mould, will miss
him very seriously. But much as I admire Skipsey,
I feel it is of little use to speak of him as a poet > the
metal is too coarse ; it is not beaten, but cast." I
assisted in getting a bust of this simple and- true
public servant executed for the Sunderland Picture
Gallery by Boehm, and a portrait of him was placed
without my aid in the Free Library. At the public
meeting on the occasion of this portrait being pre-
sented, a letter from Max M tiller was read, full of
such loving admiration, I preserved it from the daily
waste, and still further preserve an extract from it
here :

C9>.--^

■T«ft?

sT- -ST 3:s%!33r iiEfcr :ite ^xn^ ic- ~

^ cr ie i: . ,- :h:« ^' -fiE Iffi' ^aiL fi3*c :rs&

^p— - ----- ^ ^ -

.:? -Sent. ifetlimr-citaasaK. TxT^

iniaTCTus..

i- j«it7£ Bme ifedn. Jiir rszar^s i£ lii

iV:.-.: Tit ics: i£ ~iEse I sial narmg^ s Ajeaiar^

Ite_._:_ _ ^ __i _:^_^: - -v^-^ -rm.^

!Z: T,??<T ^MT, I'Sf-rr jEI TTTTIT JTif^ HCgTJTlf^^r ^

-211. Ac tEce asme zmE. iiiiw?s!??^r: is, "rier" t
"rt—'r^ _ ■ lie ? i-Z- i^jmF'^rEa: T7^TT^^^F -trtt

^^^x. X

274 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

art which EngHsh taste and the R. Academy as the
mechocre exponent of the same would Hke to crush
out of existence. He began to get into deep water,
and into the hands of 20 per cent money-lenders.
Still he fought bravely with his difficulties, and even
when his large salary was placed under trustees, he
went on with his historic subjects. An anecdote
regarding one of these I must give, as showing how
a picture, like an action in actual life, is capable of
even opposite interpretations. At this time Mr.
Peter Stewart, shipowner, of Liverpool, realising a
vast fortune, had built a great gallery for pictures, and
visited Burchett to see his latest work. Stewart was
an extreme Radical in religious and political creeds,
a companion of my dear friend W. J. Linton in the
benevolent action of securing food and lodging for
a whole shipload of Polish refugees. The subject
of Burchett's picture was the priest bearing the
sacred elements, thus barring the way and prevent-
ing the conquerors after the Battle of Tewkesbury
from invading the church, sword in hand, where
their discomfited enemies were sheltered. Burchett
had chosen the subject as a glorious example of the
power of the Church and the faith of the jDrince at
that blessed period in Merry England. Stewart
looked a long time at the picture, admired the
armour and the priest's cope and the monstrance he
held, and at last spoke out. " I admire the picture,
Mr. Burchett, it is excellently painted, and I like it
for its subject ; these men in full armour won't go
in, they won't end the day completely after risk-

SOLOMON HART 275

ing all their lives, because of that old priest with
the jack-in-the-box ! Superstition, you see, turns
them into caitiffs ! " This knocked over poor
Burchett so much, the transaction came to nothing.
Indeed, everything went amiss with him, and he
died in what should have been the middle of his
career.

The other artist I have to mention here is a
contrast to Richard Burchett, Much associated
with him in the examination of the works of the
Provincial schools, not at all in private life, I never
looked upon him as an artist. This was Solomon
Hart, whose two great successes were his election
into the Academy, and into the Athenaeum Club,
where he dined every day and only went home to
bed. He, too, had tried the large historic canvas.
His subject, the " Execution of Lady Jane Grey,"
I remember very long ago, — it must have been, I
think, when, as a boy, I drew a few months in the
British Museum. It was not at all like Burchett's
works, capable of suggesting anything to anybody ;
it was only a row of beef-eaters, larger than life, in
red loose jerkins, and above them, on a high shelf,
a young woman in black, with a bishop in white
lawn, and an executioner. He never tried the large
historic again, but somehow the Royal Academy
rewarded him by adoption. He was very learned
in the prices English artists had been in the habit
of receiving, amazingly small until our own day ;
he assured me that neither Stothard, nor any of his
contemporaries, nor any earlier artist up to Richard

276 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

Wilson, inclusive — except the two great portrait-
painters — made more than, or so much as, three
hundred pounds a year. I have found a place for
dear old Solomon Hart here, in spite of his contin-
ual habit of punning, even scheming to introduce a
pun for half an hour, and after all our having politely
to laugh at it for the twentieth time. My reason for
doinof so is that at his funeral in the Hebrew
Cemetery I discovered the origin of the words
Reqtdescat in Pace, still used by the Roman
Catholic Church in the obituaries, and on grave-
stones of the faithful, a form of record on a Chris-
tian grave which has all my life been a puzzle to
me. On every upright gravestone — and every
grave had a similar upright stone — I observed three
Hebrew words inserted towards the end of every
inscription, the rest being in English. These
words, my informant, who was a Hebrew, told me,
were only translatable " May he rest in peace,"
exactly the same as the Romanist inscription " Re-
quiescat in Pace," and they had been in use he
said, time out of mind by the Chosen People. Why
should this remain still in use with us Christians,
whose boast it is that " Immortality has been
brought to light through the Gospel," to whom,
therefore, death is the opposite of eternal sleep,
an awakening to a higher life ? The truth seems
to be, that the earliest Christians in Rome
were Jews, whose graves in the catacombs con-
tinued to be so inscribed, and these again were
imitated by later converts ; and so the form of

XVII '' REQUIESCAT IN PACE" 277

inscription continued to be ignorantly followed
afterwards by the Church, even down to this nine-
teenth century ! Such is the tenacity of life in
religious usages, when they have once become
authoritative.

CHAPTER XVIII

ARTISTIC INQUIRIES, 1879-80

I MAY enter here, a better opportunity being want-
ing, certain speculations of more or less artistic
interest, which came in my way in these late days
of literary loitering. One of the most inventive
and superb designs of Hans Sebald Beham is the
large woodcut representing the " Fountain of Re-
juvenescence." A picture by Lucas Cranach, at
Berlin, has long been a point of attraction to
imaginative visitors ; in both of these works the old
people totter along or are carried to the bath or
Fountain, which in Beham's print — a woodcut of
about four feet long — is a large water surrounded
by a grand Renaissance colonnade, under which the
renovated men and women, active and handsome in
the prime of middle life, sport together. In writing
about the Little Masters I tried to find the origin
of this myth in mediaeval times, but Dr. Litdedale
assured me it was not at all an old fable, but one
brought home from the Caribbean Sea by mariners
following the discoveries in the New World. In
all histories of these wonderful discoveries we find

CHAP. xviH ARTISTIC INQUIRIES, iSjg-So 279

the account of Juan Ponce de Leon spending years
vainly looking for the problematic island called
Bimini, where the equally problematic fountain of
youth existed. But then Ponce was only contem-
porary with the Little Masters, and Sir Frederick
Burton told me he believed there was a picture
attributed to Dirk Stuerbout, who died in 1475, of
this subject, and I found in Passavant a print de-
scribed under the heading " Le maitre de 1464,"
representing a hexagonal bason in which are men
and women ; men being seen carrying their wives
towards the bason, and one throwing his wife into
it. Behind the side of the bason is a man standing
in complete armour, and on the ground at his feet
are the words Hie est fons jtLventutis. The same
print is entered by Bartsch under the heading
" Anonymes du XV Siecle." Sir Frederick was so
much interested in the inquiry that he followed it
out to some extent, as the following letter indicates.

43 Argyll Road, lotJi December 1S79.
My dear Scott — That question about the " Fountain
of Youth " is a curious one, and it would be pleasant to
see it cleared up. It may be that Dr. Littledale has
substantial grounds for his statement. I mean, that it is
not founded upon negative conclusions merely. But one
would like to know what those grounds are. Considering
the remote antiquity and the universality of the attribu-
tion (often well-founded) to springs and fountains of
curative and renovating virtues — and the superstitions
which amongst every people have sprung out of this
belief, with myths and legends of all sorts connected with
them, the one extraordinary thing would be to find no
notion of a fountain which not only healed diseases, but

28o WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

restored youth to the decrepit. Such a notion would
seem tlie most natural possible in legendary fancies and
in myth-making times.

Yet I must confess that I have in vain searched in
Grimm (" Deutsche M}-thologie ") and in Preller, as well
as in Herodotus, for any myth or story of the sort. Nor
do I find one amongst the Irish legendary lore, although
we might easily suspect a Celtic origin for the notion.

It might very well arise amongst a notoriously pleas-
ure-loving race such as the West Indian Islanders (not
Caribs) are reported to have been, whose greatest horror
must have been the approach of a period of life when
they could no longer enjoy — and whose dreams might
well have suggested the hope of an eternal renewal of
youth. Yet I cannot help suspecting that the story
published by the Spaniards, and which set Ponce de
Leon off on his sagacious quest, arose from a mistake.
Ignorant as they were of the languages of the Indians,
save such vocables as they picked up, their chief com-
munication with the natives must have been conducted
by means of signs. They heard of a fountain which had
healing properties ; a wonderful spring that cured all
maladies and " made people young again " — a figure of
speech not unknown to us either. Ready to believe any-
thing of those marvellous new-found lands, where almost
everything differed from the old world, the Spaniards
left their own imagination free play — and themselves
invented more than they heard — so that not only their
ears, but their very eyes deceived them. I think it was
Ponce's companions, who, coming upon the huts of the
Floridians, which were rough -cast with an extremely
white stucco that glittered in the sunshine, at once came
to the conclusion that they were cased in silver. They
would only have to slaughter the natives (having first
offered them Christianity) and then peel off the precious
metal by the ton. However, even if the Spaniards were
mistaken as to what they heard, and unwittingly in-
vented the story of the magic fountain themselves, it does

ARTISTIC INQUIRIES, iSyg-So

not, of course, alter the complexion of Dr. Littledale's
statement, or in any way invalidate it. It is enough if
the Spaniards can be shown to have been the dissemina-
tors of the story in Europe, and to have brought it with
them, however acquired, from the New World. That is
the question one would like to see set at rest, and that
can only be done by finding some traces of the story in
Europe or the East earlier than A.D. 1492, or some years
after.

The daughters of Pelias we know tried to boil their
father young again. But we are not told that they used
the water of any particular fountain in cooking him ; and
so it is not a case in point — especially as the poor old
gentleman was none the better of the operation. — Yours
ever, F. W. BURTON.

This suggested my stating these eariier dates to
my learned friend Dr. Littledale, but he still held
by the story of Ponce de Leon as the origin of the
fable in Europe, at the same time suggesting the
possibility of its being a materialistic symbolisation of
the Christian doctrine of regeneration by baptism.
"This is quite likely," he adds, "to have arisen in
highly literalist minds, but I have never met with
any documentary evidence of this. All sorts of
wild notions were flying about in the fifteenth cen-
tury." In this case the figure in full armour might
be St. George or the angel Michael.

The suggestion of a symbolisation of regeneration
by baptism is, I must think, the origin of the foiis
jiLventutis, the subtilties of that period being most
curious and recondite. In art this took the form of
allegorical figures, a pedantic tendency gathering
strength from every successive development of the

282 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

Renaissance till it became effete. As it appears in
the hand of Giotto and others in the Arena chapel
in Padua, and above all in the great Saloon in the
same city, the allegorical and the symbolical is replete
with poetic character. Indeed that mighty hall with
its innumerable pictures, unhappily repainted more
than once, and its wide barrel roof, through which
an opening is made to allow the sun to draw a line
on the floor marking the daily meridian, is to me
one of the most interesting buildings in the world.

The profoundest thinker in this partially mystical
line of invention was the greatest of modern artists,
Michael Angelo, and the most surprising example
of it is in the picture of "God the Father creating
Adam" on the ceilinQ^ of the Sistine. I confess to
having lain on my back, the better to examine that
ceiling, for hours, and yet to have missed the nature
of the figure within the left arm of the Creator — a
female figure with smooth parted hair, rising from
behind, looking intently on the now living inan,
whose finger is 7'aised to touch the finger of God.
But when I saw the large photographs by Braun I
was at once arrested by the beautiful steady gaze of
this figure, unmistakably female, by her bust and
smooth hair, not one of the lusty cherub boys that
bear up the drapery that envelops the Deity ; and
I afterwards found that a large, though rude, con-
temporary woodcut existed. This woodcut was
sent by some one to the Burlington Club for ex-
amination after my letter was published in the
AthcnmiLvi. The woodcut is inscribed Caspar Rncna

XVIII ARTISTIC INQUIRIES, iSyg-So 283

fecit, without a date, but from its style may be safely
considered contemporary, and if so, probably done
from an original sketch of the great artist, as so
many large woodcuts at that time were produced
from very slight sketches. In this print the sex of
the figure within the left arm of the Almighty Father
is conspicuously expressed, and I have no doubt
Michael Angelo intended to express the coming
wife of Adam ; the figure is therefore the ante-type
or eidolon of Eve !

With respect to strictly allegorical treatment,
which was always more affected by sculptors than
by painters (indeed Giotto in the Arena Chapel at
Padua depicts the emblematic personages introduced
between his pictures in monochrome relief, as if
sculptures), I found on careful study that it had
been always carefully avoided by Michael Angelo.
The recumbent statues on the Medici tombs, usually
called Night and Day, Morning and Evening,
have no such weak and scarcely definable signifi-
cance. They have always, for these four centuries
nearly, passed under the foolish names they bear
simply because w^orks of art have never received
adequate criticism except for their external qualities.
These statues really represent conditions of life —
sleeping and watching, rest and unrest. How much
more significant they are placed on the tombs of
the Medici when reviewed under the higher inter-
pretation ! Sleep is for the night, therefore the
sculptor placed an owl beside the sleeper, and that
owl is all the authority for all the figures having

284 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

received the absurd appellations of Night and Day,
Morning and Evening. In the epigram sent to
Michael Angelo by Giovanni Strozzi that poet speaks
of the sleeper with the owl beside her as La Notte,
but in the answering epigram the sculptor corrects
him by speaking of it as if it represented sleep, which
of course it does. Michael Angelo's last line is this :

Pero non mi destar deh parla basso.

The difference between a piece of sculpture repre-
senting a mental or bodily condition and an alle-
gorical human creature flourishing a suggestive
implement, or accompanied by a previously under-
stood adjunct, is the difference between the natural
and the artificial, between poetry and riddles :
recognisable, one would say, by the meanest under-
.standing. Yet at this time Heath Wilson, whom I
knew in our earliest active life in Edinburgh, and
also in London when I joined the executive of the
miserable " Schools of Design," repudiated the dis-
tinction I drew in his book on Michael Angelo, and
laughed at my elucidation of the female appearing
in the group round God the Father in the Creation
of Adam. He went farther, showing his want of
sense by pronouncing the discovery of no conse-
quence ! Mr. Pagan too accepts the old meaningless
nomenclature of Night and Day, Morning and
Evening, applied to the statues on the Medici tombs,
in his smaller work, just out. He was, however,
much struck by my suggestion, especially on my
definition to him of the last line of Michael Angelo's

XVIII ARTISTIC INQUIRIES, iSjg-So 285

poetical reply to Strozzi's epigram. But so it will
go on ; such is the wholly exoteric nature of art-
WTiting, treating the artist only from the point of
view of taste and workmanship.

Let me give another instance bearing on the
same subject. I had been long interested in the
old controversy as to the author of the illustrations
to the pedantic romance published in Venice in
1499, the Hypnerotoniachia Poliphili. This book,
thought unique in its way, dealing with the love of
Poliphilus, a sort of impersonation of art, for Polia,
a representative of classic taste perhaps, is valued
mainly for its illustrations, which show minute
acquaintance with antique architecture and orna-
ment, and also charming purism of drawing in the
figure subjects. The origin of those designs, which
are on wood or on the soft metal much used by
engravers for surface - printing after the book-
making from metal types had arrived at perfec-
tion, as we see by the truly wonderful cuts in the
Books of Hours by Simon Vostre and others in
Paris, was a favourite subject of inquiry. All the
greatest painters of the greatest period of painting
were accredited with them, from Raphael, who
would appear to critics to have had as many hands
as Briareus, with eyes in proportion to direct them,
down to the least of all those exclusively known
by their extant pictures. I knew practically that no
painter in great repute and practice would be found
to have had any hand in the work. Ottley
and others attributed the engraving of Albert

286 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

Diirer's best prints on wood to his own hand, as if
he who never, as far as we know, cut a single Hne
on wood, could at once surpass the most expert
Jwlzschneidci' in Ntirnberg. Had they selected the
worst as probably done by the painter, they would
have been nearer the rational understanding of the
matter. How is it at the present day so few of
our best masters of the palette are great designers ?
As for the designer or inventor of the illustrations in
the Hypncrotomachia being also the engraver, that
did not follow ; even in Venice, where engraving
either in wood or copper had scarcely penetrated as
yet, it is very unlikely that he was. The earliest
volume printed in Venice bears a German name as
printer, and the immediate rise of a number of noble
editors, issuing works with admirable woodcut title-
pages, suggests that G^xm-3,x\ forinschneiders resorted
thither at once.

Ottley had indeed suggested that the designer
and engraver of prints in an Ovid printed in Venice
shortly after the HypnerotoinacJiia was the same
person. Dr. Lippmann too suggested that not only
that engraver, but also Jacob Walsch or Walch ^
had been connected with that work, because he had
returned to Venice to undertake as draftsman, no

1 This artist was formerly considered to belong to the German
school, if indeed he was not a German by birth ; now he is given up
to the Italians. He was living in NUrnberg at the end of the fifteenth
century when Durer returned thither from his Wanderjahre, and
finding Jacob there as an engraver, must have learned much from
him. Jacob's style of engraving is so much more closely allied to
the German manner that it is probable his stay in Niirnberg was to
educate himself in engraving, and even after his return to Venice he
had no effect on Italian engraving.

xviii ARTISTIC INQUIRIES, iSyg-So 287

doubt, a large view of Venice to be cut on wood, a
copy of which is to be seen in the British Museum.
But a book came into my hand, just then published,
which enabled me to identify the style of drawing of
the much-disputed illustrations with that of other
illustrative works publishing about the same year,
1499, in Venice, and to find the initials of the name
to be those of an artist who has been accredited
with many nic/li or quasi-nielli. This book was
Die Biicherornainentik dcr Renaissance, Leipzig,
1878, a collection of a hundred reproductions of the
title-borders of Venetian and other works at the end
of the fifteenth century. Several of these had an
absolutely unmistakable resemblance to the style of
those in the Hypnerotomac/iia, and on one were the
initials S. C. P., with I. below them, no doubt repre-
senting the word Inventor. Five minutes' examina-
tion by an artist, especially one expert in drawing
on wood, is worth a year's deliberation of men
who do not possess special knowledge, and internal
evidence, the evidence of style, is worth all other.
Here were the initials of the name of the artist of
these illustrations ; they were done by a quite
obscure draftsman Vasari had never heard of. I
showed the title-border Herr Butsch had faithfully
given by means of some new scientific process to
several artists, painters, illustrators, and engravers ;
they were all agreed as to the identity of the style
of drawing, and I wrote a letter to the Athenmun,
which was published 27th March 1880, with con-
siderable satisfaction.

288 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

And who was this S. C. P. ? I called him a
quasi-nicZ/ist, because the works attributed to him
in the British Museum, signed by these initials or
various combinations of them, had the lettering in
the ordinary way — not reversed, as the true niello
inscriptions always were. The name in full, as
given on one of these doubtful nielli, and as repeated
without question by Passavant, an unquestionable
authority, is Stephanus Cassenas Peregrini. Un-
happily these little engravings have been all, or
nearly all, invalidated as ancient works, and are now
believed to be modern forgeries ; at least they have
lately come to light in extraordinary numbers.
This, however, is nothing to me. The forgers may
have taken the name from this title-border, which is
beyond dispute, or they may have invented the
name from the initials ; I know nothing of that
matter.

Looking up this letter to the Athenccinn I find
some notes on the very earliest rudimentary begin-
nings of imitative art, with sketches to illustrate
them, which may be interesting enough to preserve
here. They were made in the exhibition of Dr.
Schliemann's Collection of Antiquities from Hissarlic,
1877-78. Among these the most important things,
in fact, were an immense number of red clay vessels
for water, called by him " Owl-headed Vases." He
found these in great numbers, and in his very inter-
esting work lays considerable stress on them, con-
ceiving that they are capable of bearing evidence to

XVIII ARTISTIC INQUIRIES, iSjg-So 289

a favourite doctrine that the Trojans were originally
Hellenes, the owl here supposed to be represented
beinof " the s^reat-Grreat-crreat-sfrandmother of the
bird of Pallas Athena " !

The indefatigable excavator, in descending below

n

Q^

I

j-f

/I

ft ;

the very cradle of Greek civilisation, has persuaded
hiniselt to believe anything ; these vessels are not
in the shape of the owl, but in that of the human
figure. Some of them have ears, the later ones

VOL. II u

290 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap, xviii

mouths, and the eyes quite differently represented.
It is this difference, showing the progressive steps
of imitative art, that drew my attention to them. If
we observe a child's earliest attempts at drawing or
modelling, the eyes are represented not as a feature
but as an organ, the iris and pupil are expressed as
a circle. The child and the savage feel alike in
this, and art in this follows nature herself, the earliest
true eye being bare as in the fish. The second
stage of delineation is to express the eye as a feature ;
the appearance becomes the important thing, the
lids are mainly represented, and a long slit is the
aspect of the organ. Some of the heads on these
vessels have the eyes so modelled. These are the
product of a later period, a period of years or cen-
turies. The handles are more developed also to
represent arms. The ears and the mouth are much
more expressed, and as the body of the vase really
represents the upper part of the human body — to
follow it any farther, keeping the purpose of the
vessel in view, being impossible — the breasts and
the navel are carefully recorded.

These particulars, as indicating, to use Dr.
Schliemann's phrase, the great -great -great -grand-
mother of the art of the Parthenon, appear to me
amusing as well as interesting, and render the vases
worthy of a place in our Museum. The presence of
the mammae as elevations or knobs, and the navel
as a third lower down, the smallness of the mouth,
seem to prove the head to be that of a female, more
probably that of Aphrodite than of Pallas Athena.

CHAPTER XIX

PEXKILL — JB. (miss BOVd), iSSo

It has been well said, the nation is happy that has
no history. It is so with individuals as well as
nations, and as years creep on with less struggle
and more ease there is less to record, life becomes
more orderly, and time fleeter on the wing, one year
resembles another. As spring advances into summer
and my work at South Kensington draws to a
close, we prepare to emigrate to Scotland. Ai., who
has wintered with us in London, has gone in May,
and our almost daily exchange of letters or journals
goes on till July, when we follow, thirsting for the
quiet of the Old Scotch House, its gray walls chequered
by the shade of the great trees, and the jackdaws
sitting for ever on its vane or towers.

The absolute silence of the country after noisy
Chelsea, and after trying to sleep with one's ear on
a railway pillow, if we travel by a sleeping carriage,
is like a suggestion of preternatural life. Sounds
inaudible in London to the human sense begin
to grow on the ear ; the silence becomes animated
with charming, soothing characteristics, the air is

29^

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

filled with the hum of insects, the fine winnowing of
small birds' wings, the rustle of a dress on the grass.
In my usual restlessness in the early morning, I got
up to-day to find a book wherewith to return to bed.
From the window the landscape was as still as the
house within. The sky was white, the sun un-
speakably white, making the shadows of the trees
faintly chequer the smooth green terrace. On the
point of one of the leaves of a great aloe below,
perched a thrush, silent and motionless ; two wild
rabbits were sitting on the green terrace still as if
they were carved in stone. In the clear air every
leaf on every tree had an individuality, and every
pebble on the walk, as if shade and even colour were
defects of nature, yet there was a luminosity at that
hour that gave a peculiar unity to the whole scene,
removing it from mid-day impressions. It was as if
I had looked from the palace of the Sleeping Beauty,
in its enchanted and limitless repose. But it sug-
gested a higher tone of feeling than this ; it was as
if I had awoke into another world beyond the pulsa-
tion of the senses, a state of things that would last
for ever. Repeatedly in earlier times I had felt
this almost awe-inspiring impression from absolute
silence and stillness, and I have tried to express it
in a sonnet.

Certainly such an emotional moment as this is
not possible in town. Town is the theatre for
activity in relation to the actual world, solitude in
the country creates reflection, the luxury or the pain
of life. I say solitude, because a perfect under-

XIX PENKILL—/S. {MISS BOYD), iS8o 293

Standing and sympathy with a single friend of twenty
years' standing is something more not less than
solitude. Anxiety about the house in Chelsea with
all its belongings carries my wife back thither earlier
than I care to return. She had no jealousy ; the
perfect friendship, the ambition of my life, had come
within my grasp, and year after year had made its
possession secure. To /I3. I had been of use in the
affairs of life ; on her

The vanward clouds of evil days
Had spent their malice and the sullen rear

had exhausted itself in vain ; her mind had retained
all its elasticity. She had an inexhaustible power
of perceiving what was in the mind of any one she
loved, and of meeting them midway, as if she, too,
had thought as they did ; she would rather please
them than herself. It was so truly; she enjoyed
others' happiness and others' ideas exactly as if they
were her own. There is a couplet, said to be by
Prior, a very imperfect poet, that I have seen quoted,
and have a hundred times repeated to myself, in-
wardly connecting it with /{i.

Abra was ready ere I named her name^
And when I named another Abra came.

She had, moreover, a quickness in attaining to any
handicraft or artistic accomplishment that made her
critically the most perceptive arbiter I have ever
known.

Our way of life was this. She was our guest in
winter, and we were hers in summer. I have already

294 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

Spoken of Chelsea as a country town, though a
portion of the mighty metropolis. We had or could
have had many friends there, but we become more
self-centred as we get old, and our environment, the
scenery of life, becomes more important. This
division of the year between the two localities, with
local improvements or other businesses employing
spare hours in both, became our habit. November
found us settled into a life of fires and books, and
the eve of the New Year found us waiting with
unabated pleasure for the midnight bells of Battersea
rising and falling over the running river. The first
winter I spent in London I heard the bells ring out
the old year while w^alking through St. James's Park
to my Pimlico lodgings. Last year w^e were sitting
in my library playing bezique, with a hurricane
carrying the sounds fitfully over the Thames to us.
This contrast suQ-ofested these two sonnets :

New Year's Eve. 1879-80

I

Long years ago when love was lord of me.

And all life's gifts were in the impending year,
At this same hour I heard afar and near

These New Year's bells f^ood heaven with melody

Over the snow-clad Park, as over sea
Voices of welcome to the mariner
Returning fortunate, till in the rear

St. Paul's great voice made lesser voices flee.

And now again I hear them ! far-off Bells,
Across the rushing river, in the wind,

XIX PENKILL—^. [MISS BOYD), iS8o 295

Fainting or rising as the tempest swells ;

The river rushing like dark years behind
Chasing dark }'ears gone by, and those sweet knells

High overhead like memories intertwined.

II

Ring out again, ye Bells of Battersea,
Over the seaward Thames, as I sit here
Lamplit with moistened eyes and hungering ear,

Recalling thoughts of things once hoped to be.

Past now, forgotten ; for to me

Those wild harmonics in the waves of air
Changing, yet still repeating, here and there.

Yet truly ordered, ring life's history.

Life's history and life's prophecy withal : —
Shouted the sons of God when a new ray
Showed them this infant world, and each new day

They shout, and each new year renews the call
To higher hopes, continuous and alway,
Rhythmical, storm-borne, past life's echoing hall.

As spring advances, we begin to look forward
to the chano;e. xV). must see all the Exhibitions
of the season opening in May. But before that
time, on the morning of the iSth ot March, a note
from Sir Frederick Burton informed me at breakfast
that a good copy of the picture painted by Durer in
Venice, the " Rosenkrautzfest," was to be sold that
day at Christie's. It was the anniversary of my
first meeting with J^., and we both determined
to go, and if possible to buy it in commemoration
of the day, to me the day of days. The copy of
the "Rosenkrautzfest" was the size of the orio^inal
and brought too much money, but we persevered

296 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

in our determination so far, we bought a little
Florentine picture, an Annunciation imitative of the
manner of Fra Angelico, which is now here at Pen-
kill, to be hung in the great Hall, now in course of
erection from my design.

Towards the end of May then JNIiss Boyd leaves
us in town and towards the end of July my wife and
I follow, and all through the late summer and

autumn I remain at Penkill. The orarden attains
its perfection and slowly diminishes again, the
harvest becomes yellow and disappears, the equi-
noctial winds begin to blow and the white horses
appear on the distant sea. But now and again our
friends appear on the scene, like birds of passage ;
and here while I write arrives a doggerel note from
my dear Reverend but humorous Dr. Littledale,
who promised to be one of this year's visitors. He
has been suddenly seized with one of his visitations

XIX PENKILL-~/B. {MISS BOYD), iSSo 297

of illness, still his indomitable spirits survive. " I
have been mending," he says, "but am still too
utterly weak and tired to do any work, even to write
a chant-roval or a villanelle. Still I bcQ-in to think
I shall try, and here it goes :

" I sit in town the weary weeks,
I cannot reach the Northern land
Where hurdies do without the breeks.

Where sporran still the Gael bespeaks,
Where Farintosh is aye at hand,
And salmon kippered in the reeks- —

You'll say ' Don't try poetic freaks.

The lyre responds not to your hand.

By rights tears should be on your cheeks ! '

But no, I love not snivelling sneaks,
I can no waterworks command.
Like infant thieves before the Beaks,

Though I must pass those aimless weeks
In Holborn, Fleet Street, or the Strand,
Where hansom rolls and waggon creaks.

While you are supping cock-with-leeks
And haggis too, I understand,
'Neath Penkill's pepper-boxy peaks —
Stop, stop, I hear protesting shrieks —
From the thistly Northern land ! — F. R. L."

Here on rainy days, with no painting or writing-
in progress, I have got acquainted with the oddest
collection of books. Books on Horse-shoeing^ on
the Grape, the KitcJieii Garden, and so forth ; the
once fashionable novels, neatly-bound little volumes
such as The Female Quixote, and The Adventiwes
of a Guinea, and some of the works " no gentleman's

298 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

library should be without;" but the old Magazines
are the most interesting. Here are the Universal
Magazines of the end of last century with the
accounts of the French Revolution and the doings
of the guillotine, succeeded by a page or two of
poetry, called The British Mttse, amusing by its
now incredible badness. In the advertisements of
new publications we see in the same number with
the account of King Louis's death, Godwin's Political
Justice, 2 volumes, 4to, £2 : 2s. ; an answer to Paine's
Rights of Alan by Mr. Adam, is. 6d. ; Priestley's
Appeal on the Riot of Birmingham, part 2, 3s. 6d.,
all indicating the topics agitating England in its
sympathy with France. We see from the specimens
of the British Muse how unpoetic the age was just
before the uprising of the Lake poets. Even Horace
Walpole found it hard to beat out a few rhymes on
the three Vernons, the beauties of his circle. In the
volume for 1789 we find also ample evidence of the
brutality both of the people and of the law, lawyers
having always been the last to move towards reform.
In the December session that year there were at
the Old Bailey 26 condemned to death ; 5 to be
publicly whipped in different streets named, then
imprisoned ; 2 more to be discharged after whipping ;
and 36 to be transported ; while Robert Kelly stood
in the pillory twice and was so savagely treated by
the populace that the sheriff took him away after
an hour and twenty minutes, his full time being two
hours. This brutality we find also indicated by the
boxinof matches at which the roval Dukes were

XIX PENKILL—/B. {MISS BOYD), 1880 299

spectators. The principal sawdust pit was in
Tottenham Court Road, established by subscription,
where these fights were sometimes fatal ; a man
called Tyne kills his antagonist in 1788, and
reappears in the next volume as having died of
bruises "received last Tuesday in a battle at
Wimbledon."

On the same page with this intimation we find
the Judge, Lord Kenyon, "with his usual humanity,"
as the editor has it, and Mr. Erskine, counsel for the
Crown, protecting these royal Dukes by trying "Mr.
Walter for publishing (ist February 1789) in a
newspaper called The Times two libellous para-
graphs reflecting on the character of the Dukes of
York, Gloucester, and Cumberland," as " having been
insincere in their expressions of joy in his Majesty's
happy recovery " ! Not till five months afterwards do
we find the sentence recorded. Mr. Walter is to
pay a fine of ^50, to be imprisoned for a year, to
stand in the pillory one hour at Charing Cross, and
to find ample security for good behaviour for seven
years ! The same judge and counsel a few days
later try and convict the Rev. Dr. Withers to the
same penalties less the pillory, for a libel on Mrs.
Fitzherbert. Here the leading counsel, Mr. Erskine,
who was of course shortly after raised to the Bench,
said " he had the honour to be acquainted with the
lady, who was a person of the most amiable character
and gentle manners," and the judge, among other
observations, lamented that "the most exalted virtue
was no shield against calumny." A third case of

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

libel is that of Mr. Stockdale, the bookseller, accused
of reflecting on the House of Commons for their
course of procedure against Mr. Hastings. This of
course was nobody's interest, and the jury acquitted

him.

On 19th November the King (George HI.),
now remarkably cheerful and well, goes in state to
the theatre with the Queen and three Princesses, to
see the pleasant comedy of the Dramatist. The
house was kept in a roar of laughter in which their
majesties and the Princesses most heartily joined.
The King was dressed in blue velvet embroidered
with gold lace. The Queen's dress was a deep
rose-coloured satin trimmed with diamonds ; a white
cap ornamented with a black velvet bandage studded
with diamonds, and diamonds in different parts of
her hair. The Princesses were in buff satin striped
with silver and adorned with point lace, white caps,
with blue and white feathers and diamonds in the
hair.

Old magazines are some protection against a wet
day in the country, but a shortlived one ; another
was rummaging in a great iron box containing the
family documents. No one except myself had ever
thought of this as an amusement, and I did not find
it remunerative. I found, however, a great seal of
Mary Queen of Scots appended to a very small
charter, and dated to my surprise only a year or two
after the death of her father James V., when she
must have been still a child.

Neither this nor any other paper or parchment

PENKILL—^. {MISS BOYD), iSSo

was of the least interest, and the only curiosities I
found were the singular monograms appended to
their signatures by the Scotch lawyers of the six-
teenth century. Some of them I copied, as here
reproduced.

jaC

\0m^m^_^kiu ^y^

To close this chapter, perhaps the last in these
notes, I will transcribe a sonnet recording the twenty-
first Anniversary of my first meeting Ai.

To /B., I 8th March 1880. 21ST Anniversary

Spring comes with all the firstlings of the year,
Leaping around her careless of the cold ;
Soon summer's tale so charming will be told,

The rose-leaves fall, the sun shrinks back in fear.

Alas, the hours fly faster, and more near

Yule draws to Easter when the hair turns gray,
Sooner it seems the swallovs^ fly away.
And wintr\* noes brim fiill the quivering wear.

What matters it ? These are but things we kr :
Things that pass by as Chronos gives comir-.^r_

Your smile is still as bright as long ago.

We still are gathering shells on life's seashore.
We still can walk like children hand in hand.

Friendship and love beside us evermore.

CHAPTER XX A:ri LAST

.: .-. r :: 1SS2

::y ^:z7"s saet^st h:::i — zz_--TH of ito«s>i^!i"ii

versary sonnet to jB., 1 : is MS., s"- . '

alrt: - i^ 1:1^:^: ..:..

incidenis srr — ~y writJog wi:.

and with A novel feeiiiig _: -^

-ely 5u:__:::. ; _ ; : :

V ~ f:=jr _nv vears. "sv

.. T 't depiived

rec _ lorm. siave m- tz ot ^.

304 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

admitted. This has indeed been always more or
less characteristic of the advent of my poems, good,
indifferent, or bad as they may be judged ; but in
the present case this centum of poems or rhymes —
many of them abrupt as epigrams should be, others,
ballads or short narratives or sonnets — came to me
fully dressed, as it were, every morning between
waking and rising, in the autumn months of 1881.
The motive, with every line to be employed in its
development, came to me as if from memory ; they
were written down in pencil on pieces of paper I had
placed under my pillow the night before. Every
day I thought, now the good fairy has exhausted
himself, I shall have no more ! but still it went on
till I had a good many over a hundred, some morn-
ings brineina: nie two or three. The house was full
of company, but I found time to make fair copies,
and to read them over to JPj. in the garden bower,
where in 1870 I used to read the wonderful war
news in the daily paper. Then we threw out or tore
up a number, as she objected \'iolently to such as
were either satirical or metaphysical.

While this incubation was going on, I was sur-
prised by a letter from Rossetti, whom we had left
in a very low state of general health, even suffering
from a total loss of the hope of recovery, the greatest
loss a sick man can suffer. The letter was dated
from an out-of-the-way farmhouse in Cumberland,
whither he had passively allowed himself to be carried
by a young man to whom he had suddenly become
exclusively attached, Mr. T. Hall Caine.

D. G. ROSSETTI 305

When our time came for returninof to town I was
shocked to find the dear old Gabriel prostrate on the
old sofa we had so often in the earlier times seen
filled with the most genial friends. He w^as, it now
appeared to me, going down fast ; but I tried to
keep up the usual deception we apply to invalids.
I had gone alone, thinking it best to make this first
visit so ; but he was by himself, no one attending or
trying to cheer the man whose spirits were down to
zero.

When he and I were alone, he wept and com-
plained, and made unkind speeches, or showed me
things he thought would wound me, as when he
made his servant lay before me a large chalk
sketch he called "Questioning the Sphinx." This
wounded me, because it happened that I had made
an illustration in my first issue of The Year of
the World, that juvenile "poem with a purpose,"
of the hero-traveller leaning on an augural staff with
his ear to the mouth of a Sphinx, which I called
by that name, and which the beloved D. G. R. of
that early time used to make game of, as if I had
mistaken the ancient fable in which the Sphinx was
the questioner, not the questioned. I had besides
written a poem called " To the Sphinx considered as
the symbol of religious mystery." Lying on the
sofa dying, as he was, I saw that singular expression
of ferocity that used to take possession of his face if
he surmised a quarrel was coming. I laid the sketch
aside, but he kept staring at me ; I refused to take
up the gauntlet, and I could not venture to speak of

VOL. II X

3o6 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

the sketch itself, the style of drawing being so bad
as to show his illness was destroying his work.

As the year drew to a close I was variously
harassed and occupied, among other things, with
reading my new poems to literary friends, and in
trying to find a publisher, as, since the death of Mr.
W. Longman, I had no interest in that world. Had it
not been for the favourable verdict pronounced on
the majority of my poems I would not have published
at all ; in Rossetti in particular, when very short
readings sufficed to tire him, the old enthusiasm in
my verse burst out, and the tears that came to his
eyes were answered by mine, alas ! from a different
cause. One or two such effusions of feeling were
the last flashes of ancient friendship I have to record.

Professor Marshall's object in sending young Mr.
Maudsley and a nurse was to cure, by sub-cutaneous
injections of morphia gradually decreased, his con-
sumption of chloral — of late enormously enlarged by
his increasing insomnia. The result was a complete
success. Maudsley decreased the dose, and gradu-
ally diluted it without the knowledge and without
the consciousness of the patient, till at last he injected
only water, Rossetti actually going to sleep immedi-
ately after the operation ! Altogether before this
treatment, with its surprising result, a new idea had
taken possession of his mind which caused us painful
agitation. He wanted a priest to give him absolu-
tion for his sins ! I mention this hallucination as I
have related previous ones ; for example, that of the
chaffinch on the highway, so long ago as 1869, not

D. G. ROSSETTI 307

loving him the less but the more, sympathising with
him almost mesmerically. Italian as he was, he had
no living tie to the country, had never visited it,
although Italy is conventionally the country of paint-
ing. His mother was affectionately attached to the
Church of England, and his father's book of poems
called Arpa Evangelica was evangelical enough.
But the Eesthetic side of anything was his exclusive
interest ; in poetry and in painting the mediaeval
period of history was necessary to him. Everything
he ever did in either art was mediaeval in date and
in spirit, except his picture called " Found " and his
poem called "Jenny," which had both one origin and
inspiration. I am nearly certain he never entered a
Romish church in his life, except to look at some
picture that might be there, and that he knew simply
nothing of its ritual or its sacraments.

At first no one took any notice of this demand
for a confessor. We thought his mind wandering,
or that he was dreaming. But on its earnest repeti-
tion, with his eyes open, I for one put him in mind
of his not being a papist, and of his extreme
agnosticism. " I don't care about that," was his
puzzling reply ; "I can make nothing of Chris-
tianity, but I only want a confessor to give me
absolution for my sins ! " This was so truly like a
man living or rather dying in a.d. 1300, that it was
impossible to do anything but smile. Yet he was
serious, and went on : "I believe in a future life.
Have I not had evidence of that often enough ?
Have I not heard and seen those that died long

3oS WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

years ago ? What I want now is absolution for my
sins, that's all!" "And very little too," some out-
sider in the room whispered, as a gloomy joke ;
none of us, the deeply -interested few who heard
him, could answer a word.

Shortly after this he had a slight attack of
paralysis, or fancied he had. He was carried up-
stairs to bed, and never came down again. The
difficulty in believing in his sensations made his
illness a problem to every one, and I remember
William Morris, when he came one evening to hear
some of my new poems read, asking me if I really
thought Rossetti so ill, or was he only acting to
keep those about him in suspense ? I declared I
knew him to be very ill, but Morris still hesitated
to accept my assurance. He was in fact preparing
to die. He became weaker, more natural, without
the chloral, perhaps, but less vital ; and one morn-
ing I was surprised by J. P. Sedden, the architect,
who had been building houses of the bungalow
type at Birchington-on-the-Sea, calling with the
information that he had placed one of them at the
service of the invalid, who was, at the moment of
our conversation, leaving for that place with the
young doctor, and others attending. I felt it was
too late to see him again, before going ; but he
never returned, so I saw him no more.

The picture I have drawn had been a painful
one to witness in the original, and has been only
less so to indicate in narrative, even carefully
omitting the most repulsive elements of the scene.

D. G. ROSSETTI 309

At Birchington he lived four months or more, till
the 9th of April, but the presence of his mother and
sister, Christina, cleared the air of the sickroom,
and made the period sacred. I saw him no more.

My Poet's Harvest Hovie had been issued just
the day before. Let me finish my task by my usual
method, quoting, or giving entire letters of friends
about it. Here is one from Morris himself:

Kelmscott House, Upper Mall,

Hammersmith, T.'jth April 1882.

My dear Scott — I have never written to thank you
for sending me your book, because I have been trying to
get round to see you to do so in person, but I must put
that off till next week ; so I write now.

I have just the same impression on me now I have
seen the poems in print, as I had when I heard you read
them : that they are original and full of thought, and that
their general atmosphere is most delightfully poetical and
real ; that there is real beauty about them, and I con-
gratulate you heartily on the book, which for the rest is a
very pretty little book. . . . — With best wishes, yours
ever, William Morris.

Some other letters within the bundle I have
untied I cannot resist the impulse to copy here,
they are so pleasant to me as expressions of friendly
feeling. Here is one from "our Director," as some
of us call him, F, W. Burton :

43 Argyll Road, Kensington, W.,
2\si April 1882.

My dear Scott — Having had to return to the
National Gallery late yesterday afternoon, I found there
on my table a little book, packed up, which I, being
hurried at the moment, put into my pocket as it was, and
broufjht home with me.

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

Great was my pleasure when on uncovering and
opening the tiny volume, I found my name inscribed in
it by the hand of one whose innate worth, whose high
and varied talents, and whose close friendship I value the
more deeply the longer I know him, and as to whom my
earnest prayer is that he may long be spared to us all
as an affectionate and dear friend, and an example of
thorough integrity of heart and mind, and of spotless
honour.

Before going to bed last night I read a few of the
verses in the Poet's Harvest Home, but will not attempt to
say with what delight. Later on we may talk over the
whole matter. At present I will only return my thanks
for the book.

One thing I must say here, which could not be so
well said face to face — that among the many associations
which make dear to me the memory of our great and lost
Gabriel Rossetti, not the least dear is that it was through
him I first learned to know William Bell Scott. — Believe
me ever your affectionate friend, F. W. BURTON.

From my friend. Sir Frederick, this note gave
me a great deal of pleasure, knovv^ing the usual
moderation of his language. But if I went on in
my selection of letters still extant, I might bring
into one bouquet all the valued friends left me
whose names appear in the previous reminiscences.
This would be pleasant, and artistically proper
withal ; but was there ever an autobiography or
even a memoir by a closely -attached friend pro-
duced which was not overdone } and I hold brevity
more and more imperative nowadays ; it is not
the " soul of wit " certainly, but rather the body. I
found the stringency with which I held in my little
steed in these " Hundred Short Poems" confirmed

''POET'S HARVEST HOME'

my views on this matter, and I can less and less
understand why Swinburne, publishing a poem ten
books long, of two hundred to eight hundred lines
each, in which he has glorified passion by presenting
it in an atmosphere of poetic splendour almost un-
paralleled— should load the volume with two hundred
pages more of inferior matter !

So I must allow myself to give one or two more
letters, nearly entirely relating to my book, coming
from men I have mentioned before in these pages.
The first is from Holman Hunt, somewhat autobio-
graphic in its nature, and showing, moreover, that
he had in his mind a renewal of the ancient amity
and intercourse with D. G. R., which had died out
with bitterness many years before. It is dated 17th
April 1882.

My dear Scott — My first thought on getting your
little volume is to envy you. I wish so much that I could
write poetry ! I tried a Httle in early youth, but then,
as with music at a still earlier time, and for somewhat
similar reasons, i.e. that I had almost more than I could do
to avoid being driven from painting, I was discouraged, and
lost the chance, if ever I had one, of training my ear in
the melody of sweet sounds. It seems to me that I
have been assailed more than most men in attempts to
work by obstructing demons, so that it has been impossible
to listen duly to angels' lessons. In poetry, I may say,
that I try to console myself by fancying out poems with-
out words ; but I long for the further power, that I might
tell my dreams to others.

Although I have by no means had time to go through
your little volume thoroughly, I have read enough to feel
that the poems are very dainty and thoughtful, with that
tender pitifulness that can only be expressed by an Ancient

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

justified by confidence in the authority he holds, but who
would not imitate the defiant neck of men of earlier days ;
an elder doubtful whether the objects of a holy war have
not often been missed by the hectoring spirit of the young
who have adopted the confidence in their mission of the
enlisting sergeant. Your poems have the ripeness of Age
without the loss of faith in effort which is so often a mark
of length of days, and I treasure the book in the hope that
some day I may talk to my children about its author as
one they have desired to know more of

Rossetti's death is ever in my mind, for all my old
thoughts turn up in order to be fresh marked with the
painful fact. I had long ago forgiven him, and forgotten
the offence, which, in fact, taken altogether, worked me
good rather than harm ; indeed, I had intended in recent
times to call upon him, but the difficulties arising from
this Jerusalem canvas had already humiliated my spirit
so much, that when the visit was in question I felt the
need of conquering the task before I went, and awakened
memories of early days, when, partly by the noisy blunder-
ing of followers, we were driven to stand as though we
were reckless in our challenge of the whole world of self-
seeking fools. Illness of Rossetti hindered our meeting
still more, and thus our talk over the past is deferred until
our meeting in the Elysian fields, when, if, as you suggest
in your little book, he may defer so long to drink the
waters of Lethe, and I retain my memory so long, we
may talk over back history as having nothing in it not
atoned for and wiped out long ago, and as having value
only as experience which has done its work in making us
both wiser and better. — Yours ever affectionately,

W. HoLMAN Hunt.

What this ancient but now forgiven offence was
we shall not now inquire, but this admirable letter
deserved preservation,

I shall now give a few extracts from verses
furnished by the same occasion.

''POET'S HARVEST HOME'''

Dr. Littledale, my comic versifier, quoted before
in similar strains, sent me now a sheet of verses
in the newest measures — a Triolet, a Kyrielle, a
Rondeau, and a Villanelle. The Rondeau he pub-
lished in the Academy.

His " Harvest-home " the poet brings.

Harvest of rich and lovely things,
Piled high upon the loaded wain
That bears the fruitage of the brain,

Begirt with flowery garlandings.

With generous hand its gift he flings
To all with gracious welcomings ;
And so to scatter wide is fain
His Harvest-home.

Not like the niggard's grasp that clings

To hoarded gold is his who sings,

Sings for pure love and not for gain :
Then sing we too, with glad refrain.
His Harvest-home.

"I began," he says, "by amusing myself with
parodying a public favourite, and then thought it a
shame not to put down my real sentiments also. I
send them to you exactly as they were scribbled off
in the original draft. But an hour and a half is not
enough time to write four poems in, even for a great
poet like myself." This was the Villanelle :

The harvest-home of seventy years —

Not scant and thin but lush and fair.
And rich with heavy golden ears.

In sooth a pleasant sight that cheers,
And half unloads the heart of care.
This harvest-home of seventy years ;

314 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

For should not youth discard its fears
If eld can home such harvest bear,
All rich with heavy golden cars ?

The honoured eld which still endears

The singer-artist's boon we share —
The harvest-home of seventy years.

Swinburne's sonnet I need not transcribe, as it
is printed in his Tristram volume ; but here, in
answer to a complimentary copy, is a trifle by
Christina Rossetti, which has an exceedingly inter-
esting reference to the first visit I paid to her
household about thirty-five years ago, when I first
saw her standing writing at a small high desk, as
already recorded in these notes : " before I was
twenty " indicating her age pretty nearly at the
epoch I mean :

My old admiration before I was twenty, —
Is predilect still now promoted to se'enty !
My own demi-century plus an odd one

Some weight to my judgment may fairly impart.
Accept this faint flash of a smouldering fun,

The fun of a heavy old heart. C. G. R.

This was sent me a month or more after Gabriel's
funeral. I will end by "A Rhyme to W. B. S. "
from Professor Dowden, who says in the accompany-
ing letter : " I was happy in reading your Harvest
Home, because I had not to look into the clear
serene through hangings and trappings of rhetoric.
The worst of this rhetoric is the injury it does to
the vital variety of true feeling by its uniform high-
pressure glare and blare."

XX ''POET'S HARVEST HOME'' 315

A burden of tired thoughts to ease

I called your " little dears " ^ to me,
And set a pair upon my knees,

For I had heard their voices free
And seen the sunlight on their hair ;

And but to touch their cheeks, I thought,
To make my circling arms their lair.

To lay in mine each tiny palm.
To feel the clinging of small feet,

To live within their breathing sweet, —
It will be balm
For fretted heart and brain o'erwrought.

I had no fear, no touch of awe : —
Ah, "little dears," what gifts you brought
Beyond my careless reckoning !
For they had questions far more wise
Than our accustomed old replies ;
And in their baby eyes I saw
The deeps of life, and in their breath
Heard the strong song of death.

Some few last words on the actual death of
Rossetti may be given here, derived from letters
from his brother, written immediately after, from
Birchington-on-Sea ; and also an account of his
funeral, which indisposition prevented me from
attending, in a letter kindly written me by Judge
Lushington, who had been intimate with Rossetti in
his earlier and better days. He had seen nothing of
D. G. R. through all the later period of his career,
but still retained so much interest in the singular

1 [In the Prologue to A Poet's Harvest Home the writer had
spoken of his poems as " Little Dears," and asked —

Ah me ! then, reader, can you say

" Little dears" to these to-day? — Ed.]

3i6 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT chap.

endowments of the poet as to assist at the honours
of the funeral.

W. M. R. writes to me in answer to my tele-
gram. He says : "It is too true that we have lost
Gabriel. He died about 9^ p.m. yesterday. The
immediate cause of death said to be uraemic poison-
ing, or, as we might say, functional derangement of
the kidneys leading to a bad state of the blood."
William had been at Birchington on Saturday and
Sunday, and had formed a bad opinion of his
brother's condition, so on receipt of a telegram from
Christina he returned again at once on Good Friday,
and found the invalid fatally sinking. Up to ^\
in the evening the anxious watchers did not see that
he was getting worse, but then the blood-poisoning,
"as the doctor says," went to the brain; Gabriel
cried out twice, immediately fell into a sort of con-
vulsive lethargy, and to all appearance expired un-
conscious and unsuffering.

For more reasons than one the family had con-
cluded to have the funeral there, not at Highgate,
where old Rossetti lies, and Gabriel's wife. Would
it be consistent with my feelings, he asks, and other-
wise manageable for me to attend on Friday, the
day appointed for the funeral ? If so, they would
like to see me. They mean to write to a few other
intimates to the same effect.

William writes me again three days later.
"We continue here," he says, "in that state of
hushed sorrowfulness which can be imagined, waiting
for the funeral to-morrow." In all their minds there

XX DEATH OF D. G. ROSSETTI 317

was the feeling that it really was an alternative
between loss of life and gradually increasing, and
finally, perhaps, total loss of his powers, even of all
force of mind, and that the loss of life was ten thou-
sand times the less painful and miserable branch of
the alternative. D. G. R. looked in death serene
and restful, and so natural as to suggest sleep rather
than death. This is usually the case, but they could
see no alteration up to the morning of the funeral.
On Monday, a mould had been taken from the face
and hand, one of the smallest of full-grown male
hands.

His Honour, Judge Lushington, on reaching
home wrote me as follows :

36 Kensington Square, li^ih April 18S2.

Dear Mr. Scott — I think you will like to hear how
your dear friend Gabriel Rossetti was buried, so I will tell
you — for, thanks to your kind telegram, I was there ; I
had hoped to see yoii there, and was grieved to hear that
you were prevented by illness.

The church at Birchington stands back about three-
quarters of a mile from the sea, on slightly rising ground,
which looks over the open land and the sea. It is of
gray country flint, built in the twelfth or thirteenth century,
and restored a few years ago, I thought simply ; it is nicely
kept, and to-day was full of Easter flowers. It has an
old gray tower, and gray shingle spire, which went up, as
I noticed during the ceremony, into a pure blue sky.
The churchyard is nicely kept, too ; it was bright with
irises and wallflowers in bloom, and close to Gabriel's grave
there was a laurestinus and a lilac. The grave is on the
south side close to the porch ; it was cut so clearly it
seemed carv-ed out of the chalk. Altogether it was a
sweet open spot, I thought.

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

At the graveside, wonderful to sa\-, was the old mother,
supported by William on one side and Christina on the
other — a most pathetic sight. She was ver^' calm, extra-
ordinarily calm, but whether from self-command or the
passivity of age, I do not know — probably from both ;
but she followed all the proceedings with close interest.
Then around was a company of about fifteen or twenty,
many of them friends of yours, and several whom I did not
know. The service was well read by the vicar. Then we
all looked into the resting-place of our friend, and thought
and felt our last farewells — many flowers, azaleas and
primroses, were thrown in. I saw William throw in his
lily of the valley.

This is all I have to tell you. Sad it was, very sad,
but simple and full of feeling, and the fresh beauty of the
day made itself felt with all the rest.

I shook hands with William, and came home with ]\Ir.
Graham. Dear Gabriel, I shall not forget him.

I hope you are getting better. Pray remember me to
Mrs. Scott. — Always very truly yours,

Vernox Lushixgton.

And so mv Notes brinor themselves to an end,
at least as far as we can be sure of anything we say
or do ending as long as we live. My work has not
been Art for Art's sake, but truth for truth's sake.
There is no other writing quite honourable for a
man to do ; and I shall miss the little task I have
always fallen back upon as an occupation in the
absence of any other more urgent in this pleasant
retirement I enjoy, invalid as I am, waiting till the
fatal bell shall call me home. The day is a fine,
warm day in late September ; Miss Boyd and the
gardener are among the flowers preparing for the
next spring beforehand, by cutting and layering such

END OF NOTES 319

as are preservable ; so the seasons bring their
everlasting repetition of interest. I shall go to join
them as soon as I have wound up by transcribing
the following poem, written last year :

On my Birthday, /E. 70

So many years I've gone this way!
So many years ! I must confess
Waste energies, much disarray.
Yet can I own no weariness,
Nor see I evening shadows fall
Down my much-inscriptioned wall ;
The warm air still is like mid-day,
And many mournful ghosts have past.

Laid still at last.
The Fabulist's fardel lighter grew
As near the bourne the bearer drew ;
Life can, alas, no more surprise
By its continuous compromise ;
New faces fill the chairs, and so
Our interest in the game runs low ;
Quiet pleasures longest stay ;
Experience packs so much away.

I wait and wonder : long ago

This wonder was my constant guest,

Wonder at our environing,

And at myself within the ring ;

Still that abides, and still some quest

Before my footsteps seems to lie,

But quest of what I scarcely know,

And life itself makes no reply :

A quest for naught that earth supplies,-

This is our latest compromise.

So many years Fve gone this way.
It seems I may walk on for aye ;

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

" Long life, God's gift," my brother prayed,

Nearing the confines of the dead,

Going reluctant, not afraid ;

With thankful breath I bow the head

Thinking of those grave words to-day.

The ancient tempter well divined
This longing of the sunlit blind :
" Ye shall be v/ise as gods," he said :
" If ye obey me undismayed."
Ah, never may this be ! though still
In hope we climb the topless hill.
'Tis but the ending of the strife,
Calms while it crowns the weary head.
Weary yet anxious still with eyes
Bent forward to some hoped-for prize.
But not until beyond our life.
Can the life's oracle be read.
When the unanswered brain and heart
Have ceased to ask and ceased to smart,
And all the centuries to come
Like centuries past to us are dumb.

CONCLUDING CHAPTER
BY THE EDITOR

Nine more years remained to Mr. Scott after he
wrote the grave and touching verses with which his
Autobiography ends. When he died on the 22nd of
November 1890, he had nearly completed the full
sum of fourscore years. During the last six of
them his strength was greatly impaired by recurring
attacks oi angina pectoris. That his long extension
of life beyond the ordinary span was not labour and
sorrow, was due entirely to that other "God's gift"
besides "long life" for which he has recorded his
gratitude, the gift of a noble woman's devoted
friendship. When it became apparent that he could
no longer stand the strain of active work, Miss Boyd
put her house at his service, devoted her whole time
to him, and nursed him with a care and skill to
which it would be hard to find a parallel. The
poet's dreams of an ideal friendship were realised as
such dreams can seldom have been. Often and
often has Dr. Valentine, the kindly and efficient
doctor who attended him in those last years at Pen-
kill, a sympathetic philosopher as well as a physician,

VOL. II Y

322 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

spoken to me of Miss Boyd's self-sacrificing devotion,
of the tender care and cheerful tact with which she
guarded her patient from excitement and worry,
from everything that might remotely bring on one
of the dreaded paroxysms, and the ready and
resourceful presence of mind with which she
administered the necessary remedies when attacks
came in spite of all her care.

I have asked Miss Boyd to furnish me with
some notes of the beginnings of this intermittent
illness and the invalid's habits in its intervals. I
give them here in her own words.

The weakness of his heart first showed itself on the
23rd April 1885.

He had been working at South Kensington, at the
examination of students' drawings, from the 13th of April,
and did not feel well, but had no idea of anything serious
being the matter till the 23 rd of the month at three o'clock
in the morning, when he was seized with frightful heart-
spasm, and from that time till his death he was liable to
dreadful attacks of the same, and never recovered his
bodily strength, always requiring to be most careful of
cold or exertion of any kind.

This beginning of his illness took place at his Chelsea
home (Bellevue), where he remained till his doctors thought
him well enough to bear the journey to Scotland. They
considered this change might be useful to him. Dr. R.
Thompson and Professor John Marshall were his medical
advisers.

So we made an arrangement for a through invalid
carriage from Euston to take us to Girvan without change.

Unfortunately, owing to the stupid carelessness of the
officials, clerks at the ticket-office, and porters, he had so
much exertion at the station before starting that he was
greatly exhausted, and almost fainted. We (he and

CONCLUDING CHAPTER BY THE EDITOR 323

I) went by the 8.45 P.M. train, and journeyed all night,
on the 25th-26th of June. As the night advanced he be-
came very cold, and at about three o'clock in the morning,
when the train was going at great speed, he was attacked
by a frightful heart-spasm, and I thought he was dying.
I could hardly get the necessary medicines given, from
the swinging of the carriage ; a dreadful night of suffering
it was. At last the paroxysm passed away, and though
much exhausted and very weak, he appeared to have
recovered by the time we got to our journey's end.

Alas ! this was not the case, for on the night of the
28th there was a dreadful return of illness, with congestion
of the lungs. When we got to Penkill on the 26th it
would have been right for him to have gone to bed and
kept quiet, but the pleasure of finding himself at last back
at the old place made us imprudent, and we walked and
drove about, thinking our troubles were over.

A very long illness followed, and the first time he got
out again into the sunshine was the 20th of July. After
this he regained strength to some extent, and we were
always hoping that in time he might be able to resume a
more active life, but on the 28th September another
attack, followed by congestion of the lungs, showed that
this was not to be, although sometimes months would
pass without a relapse. Once, indeed, he was free for
eight months, and even / was rather hopeful.

Looking back one sees how each year there was a
change ; something had to be given up, until at last he
had no power of walking or taking the least exertion.

It was wonderful how the mental powers were un-
changed, and how alive he was to everything that before
had interested him ; but all this you know better than I
can tell you.

I give you this painful, short sketch of the progress
of his illness as you ask me to do so ; but from your own
observation you can understand better than I can tell you
how patiently and nobly he endured five long years of
sickness, how unselfish and thoughtful he was for those

324 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

about him, and kindly and loving to all his friends ;
al\va}'s ready, if in his power, to help those in trouble,
even thinking of what he could do for them when suffering
greatly himself

He read a good deal, as you know, and friends were
most kind (you among the number) in sending him books
that they thought would interest him.

Now and then he painted a little when well enough,
and his hand and eye never lost their power — the one as
firm and the other as clear as ever to the last, as his hand-
writing can show.

The picture which he painted from a sketch done
years ago of the landing-place of St. Columba, on lona,
shows how he retained his sense of colour and feeling
for the beauties of wild, rugged landscape scenery, and
the painting of the sea is as good as at any time of his
life, and that is not saying a little. He began this picture
on the loth September 1887, and from time to time
worked upon it to within about a year of his death. It
is not quite finished, but is a beautiful work, full of poetic
feeling. He always had a great love of the sea, seen from
the land, for he was no sailor, and one of the drives he
loved best was along the coast, south of Girvan, where
you and I went the last time you were here. Sometimes
when the sea was very calm he would stop the carriage to
listen to the wash of the waves till his eyes filled with
tears.

Fortunately his love of Penkill was so great that he
never tired of it ; and the enjoyment he had in the change
of the seasons — the flowers as they came, and the farming
operations, ploughing in the autumn, with flocks of white
sea-birds following in the new-turned furrows, the sower
going out to sow, scattering the seed as he goes — was
always a delight. Then the harvesting — the strong man
on the reaping machine, his powerful arms regulating the
swathes of corn with his large rake, and the " gatherers "
ready, each in his place, quickly and deftly securing and
binding his or her sheaf When possible, we used to drive

CONCLUDING CHAPTER BY THE EDITOR 325

our brougham into the field, and watch row by row of the
golden corn fall as the large horses slowly wended their
way.

The fact was that work, big or little, really done zvell,
gave very great delight to his true artist's eye. When our
new hall^ was building he would (this was before his illness)
sit watching the masons placing their stones and proving
their lines by the " plumb," and anything done not as it
should be was very disturbing to him ; and often have I
been made to do things over again when I thought them
pretty good !

This desire to do the best possible ran through all his
actions in life, and a most severe critic he was of himself,
and so tender-hearted that I have known him deprived of
sleep by the thought that perhaps a spoken or written
word of his might hurt the feelings of a friend.

I should like it to be recorded how very ready he was
to give wise advice to young men entering upon life ; and
however busy he might be when called upon, he seldom,
if ever, sent them away without a hearing, and to many
he became a loving, helpful friend.

To read a list of the many good, kind friends who
came from far to see him here, as he could not go to them,
shows the loving interest they had in him. I give you a
list of those I remember. Others there were who would
have come, but his illnesses prevented him from seeing
them.

Vernon Lushington {jiiany times). Eyre Crowe.

F. Hueffer. J. W. Gibb.

H. Bowler. William Morris.

1 [The foundation of this extension of Penkill (the exterior of
which is shown in the annexed photograph) was laid in March 1883;
the building was finished by the end of the season, and it was ready
for habitation in the summer of 1884. It was designed entirely,
outside and inside, stonework and woodwork, down to the smallest
detail of decoration, by Mr. Scott. He had no professional assist-
ance except from the local master-workmen, and he was naturally
proud of it as his solitary achievement in architecture. The annexed
view of the interior is from a painting by Mr. Arthur Hughes. — Ed.]

326 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

Arthur Hughes {many times). W. J. Linton {twice).

Hubert Home. F. G. Ellis {from Torquay).

Mr. Hipkins. T. Bayne.

J. W. Mackail {many times). Professor Nichol.

William Minto {many times). Rev. W. Anderson.

Sydney Morse. Walter C. Smith.
J. M. Gray.

From what Miss Boyd says it will be seen
that the dear old Hermit, as we used to call him,
though invalided from active work, had lost none of
his interest in life, and kept up many of his old
occupations. For more than a year after his enforced
seclusion at Penkill, he cherished the hope of being
able to return to London, but as his strength was
gradually weakened by attack after attack of the
painful malady, he resigned himself to the inevitable.
Thus I find him writing as follows in a letter dated
nth June 1886 :

As to myself I have been very much the same all
through this long winter and longer and worse spring.
In general health well, but unable to bear the very least
fatigue of body or exposure to the air. I am not
allowed to go up a stair even ; and the other day (three
weeks ago indeed) I tried to walk the very short way to
the garden, and that night suffered one of the breathless
attacks so painful and which throw me back. The result
is my medico gives it as his opinion that I can't be
allowed to travel, so here I remain, an idle man trying to
fill up my time by writing a little, drawing or painting a
little, reading a little, and being read to a great deal.
Sometimes a friend comes for a few days ; the last was
Vernon Lushington, so long ago as in the beginning of
the year. If I could induce you to come, I should be so
glad. Miss Boyd tells me to say how glad she should be
also.

CONCLUDING CHAPTER BY THE EDITOR 327

Later on in the same year, in a letter dated 30th
November, he says :

I daresay you are surprised to find me still here. The
truth is I remain exactly the same, very weak and unable
almost to go about, now and then having those dreadful
night attacks of heart disturbance that make my doctor
prohibit travelling, and my best of friends. Miss Boyd, is
not tired of me. Mrs. Scott comes and stays a month or
so, and in the intervals of my attacks I am quite well,
that is to say, I apply myself to writing, painting, or any
other work that does not require athletic exercise.

In the autumn of the following year, a propos of
a visit that I proposed to make, after saying that it
was " the most delightful proposal he had had since
Christmas, when F. S. Ellis came from Torquay,
' once errand,' as we say in Scotland, all that way,
for a good long talk about old friends," he wrote :

About my health. You will do me a great deal of good.
Living here so much alone — with Miss Boyd, the best of
company, indeed, but without the concussion of the
robuster nature, after spending all my life in the society
of sets or coteries, if you like, men closely associated and
seeing each other daily — I sometimes get into a lowish
key which prevents me applying myself to anything
whatever, and does not assist to get me out of the invalid
groove. At present I am amazingly well, having had
none of the night attacks of congestion for some months,
but I am so weak and so unable to walk that I am never
out except in a brougham. When planted in an easy
chair I may say I am as w^ell as ever I was, and expect
you will treat me as an impostor, as many oi my friends
have done, thinking to meet a ghost of a creature with a
voice scarcely articulate.

Another extract or two from his letters to me,
which gradually became less frequent, will show

328 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

how fit after fit of the terrible angina pulled him
down, and how buoyantly he continued to rally after
each successive attack. In January 1888 he
writes :

I am again clothed and I hope in my right mind,
being trusted with a pen in my hand, although under a
severe admonition not to write much, nor about anything
very trying to the nerves. Do you know this last month
of 1887 has been the severest trial in life I have yet had,
and yet I have got over it remarkably well, and can look
forward to your promised visit in the spring with great
pleasure.

More than a year later, in April 1889, he
writes :

You see I have just been allowed to write by the
medico, but I feel no difference after so long a cessation,
and suppose you don't see any difference in my scrawl.
Yet this latest heart-spasm has pulled me down more
than any of my late attacks have done. . . . Having just
been allowed pen in hand I am expected to write only a
few words, so I shall stop, having little more to say. This
morning I have got by post a copy of W. J. Linton's
volume of poems just published by Nimmo. It is full of
spirit, and beautiful lyrics, and is dedicated to me, as the
friend of fifty years. He is my age, yet all his later
poems are on LOVE, a fack that baffles me to understand.

His wide knowledfje of men and books and art,
and the scope and freshness of his interests, made
him one of the most delightful of partners in a talk,
and my visits to Penkill must always remain among
my most pleasant memories. In the morning and
early afternoon we had no fear of the effects of over-
excitement on the night's rest, and he was equal to

^

,1

V^^

CONCLUDING CHAPTER BY THE EDITOR 329

the toughest of conversation, always eager to hear
and keen to discuss any kind of inquiry, Hterary or
philosophic, that I happened to be engaged in, or to
bring on the tapis any book or article that had
attracted his attention. In the evening we had to
be more careful. I then did my best to second
Miss Boyd's skilful efforts to turn the tide of talk on
pleasant reminiscences. A very picturesque figure
he looked propped up in the curiously-carved bed in
the tapestried chamber, of which a photograph is
printed in this volume. His scarlet biretta and
cowl made one think of an invalid Cardinal Inquisitor,
but very far from inquisitorial was the laugh with
which he capped our little jokes and anecdotes.
These evening hours were the happiest hours of his
invalid day, when the lamps were lit, a little square
red box ranged on the bed before him, and placed
thereon the glass of hot grog which was one of the
milder features of his severe regimen.

A certain hankering after serious work, a desire
to be still producing " were it but the infinitesimallest
fraction of a product," never quite left him. He
had been so indefatigable a worker all his life long
that he could not be idle without uneasiness, and
never could quite get rid of an uncomfortable feeling
that he ought to be doing something. This restless-
ness was Miss Boyd's greatest difficulty as an ever-
vigilant nurse. She quickly discovered how much
he could do without risk, and kept him within safe
limits with the most delicate and delightful tact.
Only a brute would have been refractory under

330 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

such tender authority, enforced as it was with the
liveliest wit, and he was as docile as a good-natured
child. The smile of placid content with which after
some demur and protest he resigned himself to a
judicious restriction on his freedom of will was one
of the most perfect expressions of happiness it has
ever been my lot to see.

One of his occupations was to prepare a series
of etchings from his paintings on the Penkill staircase,
with a preface on The Kings Qtiair from which the
subjects were taken. This he had privately printed,
and issued to his friends in 1887. He wrote very
little verse. All his life it had been a principle with
him never to write verse except ' under a strong
inspiration, and this excitement being dangerous
was not encouraged. Now and again, however, the
impulse seized him and would not be denied, and
one of his last labours was to prepare for the printer
in his punctiliously neat manner a small collection
of pieces to follow a second edition of his Harvest
Home as an Aftermath. This he asked me, In the
spring of 1890, to see through the press, the con-
dition being that he was to see nothing of It till the
book appeared ; but the negotiations with a publisher
were hardly begun when Miss Boyd saw that the
prospect made him anxious, and it was given up.
Perhaps his chief occupation during his years of
Illness was reading and revising the Autobiographic
Notes now printed. In the last chapter he speaks
as If his intention had been in 1882 to lay them
aside for ever. But this he could not do. Miss

CONCLUDING CHAPTER BY THE EDITOR 331

Boyd tells me that she often left him apparently
tranquil, quietly reading or disposed to sleep, and
returned to find him with the MS. before him, busily
revising, re-writing, and interpolating. Till I
discovered that this had been his practice, I was
often puzzled by allusions that seemed to be of later
date than the ostensible time of writing, and any
confusion arising from this I have tried to put
straight. With characteristic love of order he neatly
pasted in every correction, so as not to break the
continuity of the MS.

If he wrote little during those last years, he read
and was read to a great deal, keeping himself well
abreast of everything going on outside his quiet
hermitao-e. Like his other friends I went to Penkill
only when his kind hostess had the doctor's consent
to the invitation. But to the last I could never see
any falling-off in the old breadth and variety of his
interests. His mind continued to be a mirror of the
English world of art and letters. Any new move-
ment at once caught his attention and was eagerly
followed. To take the first examples that occur to
me, I heard of Robert Bridges from him before Mr.
Lang's praise had made that name as familiar as it is
now. Of his interest in Mr. Lang's own brilliant
career he has spoken in his Notes ; it continued to
the last. I sent him Mr. Henley's Book of Verses
w^hen it came out : my copy was returned by and by
with a message that he had ordered one for his own
use. Before his illness he had designed a frontis-
piece for Love in Idleness. One of the three then

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

youthful authors, Mr. Mackail, is in Miss Boyd's
list of frequent visitors to Penkill. Another name
also there is Mr. Hubert Home's. The ideas and
aims of the Century Guild were likely to commend
themselves to one who was in himself an embodi-
ment of the unity of the Arts. He contributed a
poem to the Hobby Horse as in years gone by he
had contributed to the Germ. And while young
men found his appreciation of their work as fresh as
it was in the Pre-Raphaelite days, he continued to
maintain pleasant relations with many old friends,
and to receive public acknowledgments of respect
and affection. I have quoted from a letter in which
he speaks of Mr. W. J. Linton's dedication of a new
volume of Poems and Translations to " the friend of
nearly fifty years." A poet of a younger generation,
Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse, inscribed Corn and Poppies
to his veteran friend. But the tribute in this kind
which naturally gratified the old man most was the
splendid poem in which Mr. Swinburne dedicated
to him his third series of Poems and Ballads.

That Mr. Scott should have kept the love and
respect of so many friends was but just, for he was
essentially a man of a genial and friendly disposition,
as these autobiographical notes abundantly testify.
With some, as I have been surprised to hear since
his death, he had the repute of saying severe things,
of taking characters to pieces in a grudging spirit, of
reducing personal pretensions to the lowest possible
denomination something after the manner of Carlyle.
This I simply cannot understand, except as a mis-

CONCLUDING CHAPTER BY THE EDITOR 333

understanding. Those who knew him best do not
say this of him. It is very far from being my own
impression. I had many a long talk with him in
the sixteen years during which I had the privilege
of knowing him, and I can aver that I have never
heard him say an unjust or uncharitable word, and
that I have heard him say many a generous one.
It is true that though he lived all his life, as he says
in one of the letters I have quoted, in sets or coteries,
he had not the coterie weakness — an amiable enough
one in its way — of seeing only the merits of his
fellow-members. He had too scrupulous a literary
and artistic conscience for this. He simply could not
praise what he did not honestly admire. Perhaps
he was sometimes too outspoken about shortcomings.
The less a member of a coterie says about the work
of his fellow-members, except in the way of uphold-
ing it against the envious and calumniating tooth of
the world, the better for his peace of mind, for a
bird of the air, in the shape of a candid friend, is
generally ready to carry the voice. Mr. Scott had the
knack of putting things happily, in graphic phrases
that exactly expressed his meaning, and when they
came to his lips, he could not always judiciously keep
them back. Thus I have heard him, after a very
just and liberal allowance of merit, sum up by saying
that So-and-so " had no devil in him," or that So-
and-so "was no doubt a very respectable codger" —
the remark, of course, applying to the artist, not to
the man. He would not, of course, say such things
to So-and-so himself. The friendliness of his nature

334 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

would lead him rather to keep any sense of demerit
or defect in the background. But a candid friend
might carry the voice.

I do not, however, conceive that it is any part of
my duty to comment on the character of my much-
beloved old friend. It is very fully and frankly
revealed in these Autobiographic Notes. A wise
and charitable soul makes itself felt in every chapter
of them. I have no doubt that those who knew
him will have the same feeling that I had myself on
first perusing them. So direct and sincere is their
utterance, they are written so exactly as the man
was in the habit of speaking, that one seems to hear
his voice behind every sentence — the grave-pitched
kindly voice with its slow measured articulation
which was so true an index of the grave, thoughtful,
kindly nature.

He died on the 22nd of November 1890. A
few weeks after his death there appeared in the
AthencBiLm a noble tribute to his memory which
I have Mr. Swinburne's permission to reprint here.

MEMORIAL VERSES

ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAJNI BELL SCOTT

A life more bright than the sun's face, bowed
Through stress of season and coil of cloud.

Sets : and the sorrow that casts out fear
Scarce deems him dead in his chill still shroud,

Dead on the breast of the dying year.
Poet and painter and friend, thrice dear

For love of the suns long set, for love
Of song that sets not with sunset here.

CONCLUDING CHAPTER BY THE EDITOR

For love of the fervent heart, above

Their sense who saw not the swift Hght move

That filled with sense of the loud sun's lyre
The thoughts that passion was fain to prove

In fervent labour of high desire

And faith that leapt from its own quenched pyre

Alive and strong as the sun, and caught
From darkness light, and from twilight fire.

Passion, deep as the depths unsought

Whence faith's own hope may redeem us nought,

Filled full with ardour of pain sublime
His mourning song and his mounting thought.

Elate with sense of a sterner time.

His hand's flight clomb as a bird's might climb

Calvary : dark in the darkling air
That shrank for fear of the crowning crime.

Three crosses rose on the hillside bare.
Shewn scarce by grace of the lightning's glare
That clove the veil of the temple through
And smote the priests on the threshold there.^

The soul that saw it, the hand that drew.
Whence light as thought's or as faith's glance flew,

And stung to life the sepulchral past,
And bade the stars of it burn anew,

Held no less than the dead world fast
The light live shadows about them cast.

The likeness living of dawn and night.
The days that pass and the dreams that last.

1 [The reference here is to Mr. Scott's picture of the theme : —
" And, behold ! the vail of the Temple was rent in twain from the
top to the bottom, and the earth did quake, and the rocks
rent." — Ed.]

336 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

Thought, clothed round with sorrow as light,
Dark as a cloud that the moon turns bright,

Moved, as a wind on the striving sea.
That yearns and quickens and flags in flight.

Through forms of colour and song that he
Who fain would have set its wide wings free
Cast round it, clothing or chaining hope
With lights that last not and shades that flee.

Scarce in song could his soul find scope,
Scarce the strength of his hand might ope

Art's inmost gate of her sovereign shrine.
To cope with heaven as a man may cope.

But high as the hope of a man may shine
The faith, the fervour, the life divine

That thrills our lif6 and transfigures, rose
And shone resurgent, a sunbright sign.

Through shapes whereunder the strong soul glows
And fills them full as a sunlit rose

With sense and fervour of life, whose light
The fool's eye knows not, the man's eye knows.

None that can read or divine aright

The scriptures w^it of the soul may slight

The strife of a strenuous soul to show
More than the craft of the hand may write.

None may slight it, and none may know
How high the flames that aspire and glow

From heart and spirit and soul may climb
And triumph ; higher than the souls lie low

Whose hearing hears not the livelong rhyme,
Whose eyesight sees not the light sublime.

That shines, that sounds, that ascends and lives
Unquenched of change, unobscured of time.

CONCLUDING CHAPTER BY THE EDITOR 337

A long life's length, as a man's life gives
Space for the spirit that soars and strives

To strive and soar, has the soul shone through
That heeds not whither the world's wind drives

Now that the days and the ways it knew
Are strange, are dead as the dawn's grey dew

At high midnoon of the mounting day
That mocks the might of the dawn it slew.

Yet haply may not — and haply may —
No sense abide of the dead sun's ray

Wherein the soul that outsoars us now
Rejoiced with ours in its radiant sway.

Hope may hover, and doubt may bow.
Dreaming. Haply — they dream not how —
Not life but death may indeed be dead
When silence darkens the dead man's brow.

Hope, whose name is remembrance, fed
With love that lightens from seasons fled,

Dreams, and craves not indeed to know.
That death and life are as souls that wed.

But change that falls on the heart like snow •
Can chill not memory nor hope, that show

The soul, the spirit, the heart and head,
Alive above us who strive below.

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

VOL. II

INDEX

Academy, Royal, i. 107, 109, no
Allan, Sir W., i. 80
Allingham, \V., ii. 31, 32
Aiitiqttarian Gleanings, i. 220
Arloshes of Woodside, i. 221
Armitage, painter, i. 169
Art and Artists in 1837, i. 105-13
Art, Italian, heresies on, i. 231 ;

Bavarian, 318
Atlas, The, Editor of, i. 123
Autobiography of 1854 destroyed, i.

3, 276

B

Balder, i. 80, 100

Ballads, Jacobite, i. 79

" Ballad Singer, Old English," picture,

i. 108, no, 114
Ballantine, James, fellow - pupil in

Edinburgh, i. 81 ; ii. 2, 206
Barker, Fiott, i. 342, 343
Barnby, Goodwin, the Proto-Shiloh,

i. 174, 175

Battei-sea Bells, sonnets, ii. 294, 295

Bavarian Art, i. 318

" Bede, Death of," picture, ii. 7

Bee, The, \. 21

Beetham, Father, i. 349

Beham's " Fountain of Rejuvenes-
cence," ii. 278

Bell, Henry Glassford, i. 78

Bell's English Poets, i. 14

Bentham, Leigh Hunt's opinion of
his atheism, i. 129

Bewick, compared with Rosch, i.
194

Bewick, Robert, i. 194-96

Blair's Grave, i. 21, 68, 74

Blake's designs for The Grave, i. 21,
23 ; Sonnet on, 23 ; Songs of In-
nocence, 22

"Boccaccio and Dante's Daughter,"
picture by W. B. S., i. 305

Bowler, H. A., sketch by, ii. 296;

325

Boyd, Miss, ii. 54, 56, 57, 59;
removes from Newcastle to London
with the Scotts, 73 ; tries to defeat
a prophecy, 79; 163, 169, 181,
182, 291-302, 318, 321

Boyd, Spencer, ii. 75, 77 ; death of,
78; name "thought-read" by a
medium, 81

Boydell's Shakespeare, i. 16

Brown, F. Madox, D. G. R. a pupil
of, i. 287 ; might have gone to
Australia, ii. 48 ; his family circle,
183 ; the high character of his
painting, 189 ; a funny mistake,
190

Brown, John, letter from, ii. 26, 27

Brown, Samuel, as medical student
in Edinburgh, i. 92 ; in London,
157, 158 ; rhabdomancy, 219 ; his
laboratory in Portobello, ii. i ;
death of, 25-27

Brown, Tom, engraver and man of
science, i. 45, 82

Browning, performance of Straffo7-d,
i. 124 ; W. M. R. on Sordcllo, ii.
57 ; D. G. R. on Balamtion's
Adventure, 138 ; Fifijie at the
Fair, 180

Browning, Mrs., Aia-ora Leigh, ii.
34 ; in Paris, 30 ; in Florence, 35

Burchett, R., ii. 272-75

Burnet, John, engraver and printer,

340

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

apprentice witl; R. Scott, a " genius,"

i. 19 ; his career, 46, 47
I3urns, sonnets on, ii. 164; Rossetti's

criticisms of, 152, 155 ; W. B.

S.'s edition of, 166 ; unpublished

letter of his, 177
Burton, Sir F. W., letter about

Wallington, ii. 259-60; letter

about Fans Jiivcntiitis, 279-81 ;

letter in acknowledgment of //rt/Tv^i'/'

Home, 309, 310

Caine, T. Hall, ii. 304

Campbell's Pleastires of Hope, i. 70

Carlyle, his Hero-worship, i. 158 ;
satire of his Cromwell, 159; Hades
sent to him, 159 ; first meeting
with, 269 ; droll passage-at-arms
with, ii. 20-24 ; on Millais' stair-
case, 223 ; and Thomas Dixon,
270

Carlyle, Mrs., i. 270

Carmichael, Newcastle painter, i.
185, 209, 210

Cartoon Competition for Houses of
Parliament, i. 166-73; second
competition, 214

Chevy Chase, subject of picture at
Wallington, ii. 11, 118

Cholera at Newcastle, 1. 341

Clennell, Luke, painter, i. 163 ; son
of, 198-201

Cloud Confines, poem by D. G. R. ,
ii. 146, 154, 155

Cole, Sir H., head of Science and
Art Department, i. 181, 329

Collins, Charles, P.R.B., i. 285, 2S6

Collinson, James, P.R.B., i. 281 ;
ii. 273

Constable, in 1837, i. 106

Cope, painter, i. 169

Cowen, Joseph, M.P., i. 122, 338

Crowe, Eyre, ii. 325

Crowe, Mrs., i. 218, 219 ; ii. 2

Curate, muscular, in cholera epidemic,
i. 340, 347, 348

" Cuthbert, St.," picture, ii. 7 ; D.
G. R.'s criticism, 35, 36

D

Dadd, Richard, chairman of mal-

contents, i. Ill; in Houses of
Parliament Cartoon Competition,
172
" Danes at Tynemouth," picture,

ii; 7

Design, Schools of. History of, i.
180,327-31

De Quincey, i. 98 ; ii. 3

Deverell, Walter, P.R.B., i. 285 ;
his "Twelfth Night" picture, 286,
315,321; his ill-health, 305, 320;
D. G. R.'s letter on his death, 320

Dixon, Thomas, of Sunderland, ii.
33, 264-72^

Dobson, Austin, ii. 198

Doubleday, Thomas, Newcastle poet,
i. 198

Dowden, Prof., a "Rhyme to W.
B. S.," ii. 314

Diirer, Albert, analogue of his work-
shop, i. 45 ; his copper-plates, 50 ;
visit to Niirnberg, 317 ; picture of
his house, 319; W. B. S.'s Life of,
ii. 193

Dyce, William, painter, on prospects
of historical art, i. 208 ; and wall-
painting, 215

Eastlake, Sir C, i. 16S-70

Ebsworth, J. W., i. 264

Education, W. B. S.'s early, i. 12-

24
Eldin, John Clerk, Lord, i. 18
Emerson, R. W., letter from, i. 240 ;

intercourse with, 241, 242; portrait

by D. Scott, 241
Engraver's business at beginning of

century, i. 18-20
Enthusiast, an, ii. 237-41
Epps, Dr. John, i. 255 ; his poetic

butler, 256

Fairbairn, J. C, early friend of W.

B. S., i. 92 ; letter from, 93, 94
Fine Arts, chair of, in Edinburgh, i.

124
Fans Jtive7it litis, inquiry into myth,

ii. 281-83
Foxglove, The, a poem, ii. 122

INDEX

341

Franco -German War of 1S70, ii.

119-26
Franklin, book illustrator, i. 162
Fresco painting, remarks on, i. 214,

215

Frith, painter, in 1837, 1. no, 112
Fuseli's designs, i. 17 ; influence on
Blake, 23 ; influence on Von Hoist,
162 ; price of a picture by, 263

" Grace Darling," picture, ii. 7,

55> 58
Graffito paintings in S. K. Keramic

Gallery, ii. 107
"George Eliot," ii. 71, 247, 248;

Carlyle on, 249
Germ, The, i. 282-84, 323
Gilfillan, G., on David Scott, i. 267
" Gilpin, Bernard," picture, ii. 7, 56
Gosse, E. W., ii. 193

H

Hall, S. C.'s Booh of Ballads, i.

108
Hake, Dr., ii. 172, 176, 178, 180
Hamerton, P. G., ii. 124-26
Hancocks, the, of Newcastle, i. 184
Hannay, ii. 32, 35
Hart, Solomon, ii. 275
Harvey, Sir G., ii. 206
Haydon, B. R. , personal traits, i.

166-68 ; at the Westminster Hall

Cartoon Competition, 171
Henley, W. E., ii. 331
Henning, sculptor, i. 1 1 5
" Hexham Market-Place," picture, i.

224, 322
Hogarth Club, ii. 47
Hogarth's designs, i. 17
Hogg, " Ettrick Shepherd," his

Justified Sinner, i. 69
Hoist, T. von, painter, i. 162-64
Home, Hubert, ii. 326, 332
Home, R. H., the farthing Orion, i.

253
Horoscope, i. 119
Howitt, W., i. 297, 315
Hovvitt, Anna Mary, letter from, i.

322, 323 ; her spiritualism, ii. 242,

243

VOL. n

Hueffer, F., ii. 163, 168, 183 ;
letters from, 185-87; nonsense
verses, 187, 188

Hughes, Arthur, ii. 31, 35, 67, 325

Hunt, Holman, his painting in 1848,
" Light of the World," i. 280 ;
Ayrshire sermon on this picture,
309 ; letter giving its history, 311
14 ; fled to the desert, 320 ; in
the East, ii. 31 ; painting at home,
" Christ and the Doctors," 35, 49 ^
letter on technical matters, 49 ;
proposed return to East, 50 ;
sketching at Falmouth, 56 ; sale
and exhibition .of pictures, 58 ;
letters from Jerusalem, 1870, 1871,
88-106; his "Triumph of the
Innocents," 221, 225-27; letter
concerning, 228-32 ; the model
of " The Prophet," 241 ; letter on
Harvest Home and death of D. G.
R., 311, 312

Hunt, Leigh, i. 125

Hyp)ierotomacJiia Poliphili, ii. 285-88

I

Illustrations, character of, in 1 830,

i- 15

Introspective tendency, i. 3, 329
" Iron and Coal," picture, ii. 7
Italian art, heresies on, i. 231

J

Jones, Burne, his first designs, ii.

37 ; his indifference to opinion,

216
Jones, Ebenezer, i. 252

Keats, early study of, i. 88 ; Leigh
Hunt and, 128

Kelly, Father, i. 348

Kelmscott, ii. 130

Kennedy, fellow-pupil in Edinburgh,
i. 80

King's Qiiair, subject of wall-paint-
ings at Penkill, ii. 83 ; suggestion
of D. G. R.'s King's Tragedy,
116

Z 2

342

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

Lang, Andrew, ii. 201, 331

Lawyers' marks from Penkill chest, ii.
301

Leathart, James, picture collector, ii.
48, 207

"Legion, Prince," a series of designs,
i. 131, 132

Lewes, G. H., note from, i. 129,
130 ; his turn for language, 131 ;
reference to early friendship in
Leader, 132 ; his youthful ambi-
tions, 133 ; letter about Year of
the World, 238 ; resumes acquaint-
ance, ii. 71, 72 ; death of, 244 ;
his powers, 245

Lilly, the astrologer, i. 119

Linton, W. J., friend of Mazzini, i.
121 ; verses by, 121 ; at Brant -
wood, 122 ; and Emerson, 241 ;
and politics, 252 ; D. G. R.'s
opinion of, ii. 36 ; and Polish
refugees, 274 ; poems, 328

Little Boy, poem, i. 41

Littledale, Dr., humorous verses by,
ii. 296, 313, 314

Losh, Miss, of Woodside, a Cum-
berland "Worthy," i. 221

Lushington, Vernon, ii. 37, 47 ;
letter on D. G. R.'s funeral, 317,
325, 326

IM

Mackail, J. W., ii. 326, 332
Maclise, in 1837, i. 107, 112 ; and

wall-painting, 215 ; price of a

picture by, 263 ; ii. 83-86
Marshall, Calder, sculptor, i. 161
Marshall, Mrs., spirit medium, ii.

80-82
Marston, Philip Bourke, ii. 198
Martin, John, brother of, i. 196
Marzials, Theo., ii. 194
Mazzini, i. 121, 255
Meadows, Kenny, recollections of,

i. 1 13-15 ; his views of town and

country, 175 ; letter from Jersey,

ii. 71
Michael Angelo," Creation of Adam,"

ii. 282, 283 ; figures on the Medici

tombs, 283, 284
Millais, as P.R.B., i. 278; "The

Carpenter's Shop," 279 ; his fun,

306-8 ; resents bad hanging, ii.
29 ; anecdotes of, 222, 223

Milton, Thomas, engraver, i. 17

Monk, a model, ii. 241

Monkhouse, Cosmo, ii. 336

Mormonism in Newcastle, i. 334, 335

Morris, William, fresh from Oxford,
ii. 37 ; his first picture, 39 ; his
tales in Oxford and Cambridge
Magazine, 40 ; his Defence of
Giicnevere, 42 ; his Red House at
Upton, 60, 61 ; in Iceland, 153 ;
at Kelmscott, 157, 161 ; letter to
W. B. S. on publication of Poems,
212, 213 ; on Harvest Home, 309

Morse, S., ii. 326

Motherwell, W., i. 79

Midler, ]\Iax, on Thomas Dixon, ii.
271

Munro, Alex., sculptor, makes me-
dallion of W. B. S., i. 307 ; letters
from, 320 ; ii. 30 ; busts of Sir
Walter and Lady Trevelyan, 68

N

Nettleship, artist, ii. 196, 197
Newcastle in 1844, i. 182, 183 ;
amusements of society there, 185,
186 ; art manufactory, 189
Nichol, Professor, astronomer, i. 218,
219, 334; ii- I

O

Oliphant, Francis, i. 188
Ord, Walker, i. 78
Orsini, i. 255
O'Shaughnessy, ii. 189, 196

Park, Patric, sculptor, i. 161, 162 ;
his busts of Haydon and Napoleon
IIP, 164 ; his unlucky generosity,
165

Parliament Square, Edinburgh, en-
graver's shop there, i. 13, 43-50 ;
its "little masters," 45 ct seq.;
burnt in 1824, 49

Patmore, Coventry, i. 252, 297, 306 ;
ii. 31

INDEX

343

Paton, Sir Noel, ii. 206

Pattison, Mrs. Mark (Lady Dilke), ii.

Paul, Emperor, relic of his murder at
St. Petersburg, i. 212

Payne, John, ii. 197

Penkill Castle, ii. 57 ; description
of' 73 > paintings on staircase of,
83, 108, 116 ; way of life at, 291-
302

Perseverance and genius, ii. 217-20

Poems, on Blake's designs, i. 23 ;
Little Boy, 41 ; Pillars of Seth,
57-60 ; Rosabell, 135 ; on W. A.
C. Shand, 204 ; on his brother's
death, 261 ; sonnet to his brother,
266 ; " My Mother," sonnets, 274,
275; The Foxglove, ii. 122; On
Going to Live in Bellevue House,
123 ; Dedicatio Postica, 209 ; New
Yearns Eve, 294, 295 ; to Miss
Boyd, anniversary, 301 ; yEtat.
70, 319, 320

Poetry, causes of its popularity ob-
scure, i. 254

Poet'' s Harvest Home, ii. 303

Poets, the rising generation in 1S75,
ii. 192-201

Poole, painter, i. 1 1 1

Pre-Raphaelites, i. 248 et seq. ; first
knowledge of the name, 277 ; the
P. R.B.'s and their principles, 277-
87 ; the Germ, 282 et seq. ; short
history of the brotherhood, 323-
26 ; ill-used by the Academy, ii.
52

R

Pequiescat IX Pace, origin of, ii.

276
Richardson, Anna, Quaker, i. 351-

Richardson, T. M., Newcastle painter,

i. 207
Roberts, David, scene-painter, i. 81
" Roman Wall, Building of," picture,

ii. 7, 38
Ronge, Johannes, and Holy Coat of
Treves, i. 336-40 ; letter from,

339

Rosabell Bonally, acquaintance with,
i. loi ; poem on subject of, 135 ;
Rossetti and this poem, 289, 305,
322

Rosch, compared with Bewick, i.
194

Rossetti, Christina, i. 247 ; a draw-
ing pupil, 279 ; verses in acknow-
ledgment of Ha7-vest Home, 317

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, autobio-
grapher's third "friend," i. 88;
first letter from, in 1847, 243 ;
sends "Songs of the Art-Catholic,"
245 ; in Holman Hunt's studio,
248 ; early pictures, 278, 281 ;
visits Newcastle, 287 ; fascination
of, 289 ; walks back through
Shakespeare country, letters, 291-
93 ; his opinion of " Self-Culture,"
293; news.- letters, 301-3; epi-
taph on Scotus, 305 ; develop-
ment, 314, 315 ; and Miss Siddal,
316; proposes sketching club,
325 ; and Ruskin, ii. 8-10 ; news-
letter in 1855, 31, 32 ; criticism of
"St. Cuthbert " picture, 35, 36;
designs woodcuts for Tennyson's
poems, 35, 36 ; first impressions of
W. Morris and Burne -Jones, 37 ;
paintings in the Oxford Union,
40-42 ; his habits of painting,
43-45 ; succeeds in life-size paint-
ing' 5I> 52; letters after his
marriage, 62, 63 ; his picture
"Found," 63; his wife's death,
65 ; spiritualism, 66 ; at Penkill
in 1868 and 1869, 1 08-18 ; is
persuaded to resume poetry, 109 ;
in Bennan's Cave, .115; deter-
mines to recover the buried MS.,
117; letters to W. B. S. from
Kelmscott, 127-63 ; his sleepless-
ness, 139; the attack on "The
Fleshly School," 161 ; how
affected by, 168, 171 ; his ill-
ness, 172; at Stobhall, 173.;
letters from, 175, 176; at Kelm-
scott, recovered, 178 ; mysterious
letter from, 179 ; nonsense verses,
1S7-89; urges publication of
poems, 202, 203 ; letter on publica-
tion, 209-11 ; letter from Bognor,
213-16; broken health, 304-308;
death, 315

Rossetti, W. M., visits Newcastle in
184S, i. 277 ; sonnet in Germ,
324 ; news-letter in June 1855, ii.
30, 31 ; in 1856, 32-35 ; edits
Walt Whitman, 33, 267 ; news-

344

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

letter in 1858, 47; letter ou
Sordello, etc., 58; takes part in
a seance, 80 ; anxiety about his
brother, 174; one of a party in
Italian tour, 182; letters on his
brother's death, 315-17
Ruskin, J., ii. 5, 7-12

SCHLi EM ANN'S ' ' Owl-headed Vases,"
ii. 2S8-90

Schoelcher, Senator, Le Vrai St.
Paul, ii. 252

Scotland's Skaith, i. 21

Scots Magazine, i. 13, 18, 70

Scott, David, early influences on his
art, i. 15, 17 ; Memoir of, 26,
267, '268; in Rome, 83; contri-
butes to Souvenir, 92 ; in Cartoon
Competition for Houses of Parlia-
ment, 168, 169, 171 ; his egoism,
1 7 1 ; his specimen of fresco, 216;
his studio, habits, and character,
216-19 ; last illness and death,
259, 260; Reqiciem, 261 ; his char-
acter, 262-69; "Maxims from
Italy," 265; Rossetti concerning,
283

Scott, George, uncle of W. B. S., i.
29-3 1 ; his nursery rhymes, 30 ;
his game eggs, 71 ; his last days,
219

Scott, Mrs. (L. M. N.), i. 118;
takes part in religious inquiries,
332 ; letter from, ii. 59, 60 ; 327

Scott, Robert, engraver, his shop, i.
i3> 43-50 '■> personal appearance,
28 ; his Sunday books, 28 ; his
religious services, i. 27, 32 ; his
teaching, 38, 39 ; his financial
troubles, 61-63
Scott, Robert, brother of W. B. S., i.
27 ; boyish adventure, 65 ; early
death, 67 ; return from West
Indies, 99
Scott, Sir Walter, his strong language,

i. 70 ; interview with, 72-75
Scott, William Bell, birthplace, i. 7-
12, 31 ; home education, 12-24 '■>
his father's household, 25-32 ; his
mother, 25 ; his uncle George, 29-
31 ; reminiscences of childhood,
33-42 ; early religious influences.

53 ; first attempts at poetry, 56-
60 ; his first picture, 77 ; art
studies, 80-Si ; his engraving of
"The Martyrs' Tombs," 83; his
early friends, 87 ; poetic and
philosophic studies, 88, 89 ; essays
in ballad and octosyllabic, 89 ;
contributes to Edinburgh Uni-
versity Souvenir, 91, 92 ; leaves
Edinburgh in 1837, 99, 100; his
equipment and hopes, 102, 103 ;
"painter's etchings," 105; first
picture in London, historical, 108 ;
his horoscope, 119; makes ac-
quaintance of Leigh Hunt and G.
H. Lewes, 123-34; his "Prince
Legion," 131; his poem of Ti'^i'a-
bell, 135 ; takes part in Cartoon
Competition for Houses of Parlia-
ment, 168 ; appointed to master-
ship in School of Design at New-
castle, 1844, 173 ; his motives in
accepting, 173, 251 ; his work as
art master, I'j'j et seq. ; publishes
Antiquarian Gleanings, 220 ;
anatomical studies at Durham,
220 ; landscape haunts in the
North, 220-28 ; unaffected by
Continental tours, 231 ; heresies
on Italian art, 231-33 ; writes
77ie Year of the World, 234 ;
first letter from D. G. R., 243 ;
makes acquaintance of the Ros-
setti family, 247 ; of Holman
Hunt, 248 ; his brother's death,
259 ; his mother's death, 273 ;
early autobiography (destroyed),
276 ; visits Paris, 299 ; gives
" Half - hour Lectures on the
Arts," 330 ; inquires into in-
fluence of religion on character,
331-56; invited to Wallington
Hall, ii. 3 - 6 ; pictures commis-
sioned illustrative of Border his-
tory, 7 ; makes acquaintance of
Miss Boyd, 56, 57 ; first visit to
Penkill Castle, 59 ; returns to
London, 1864, 70; reflections'on
town and country life, 70 ; paints
Keramic Gallery windows in
graffito, 107 : completes Chevy
Chase series, 118; buys Bellevue
House,'^Chelsea, 119 ; settles there
in 1870, 123; writes Life of A Ibei-t
Diirer, 193 ; edits Burns, 166 ;

INDEX

345

designs door for Lecture Theatre,
South Kensington, 170 ; visits Italy,
182; publishes poems in 1875,
202 ; artistic investigations, 278-
90; way of life at Penkill, 291-
302 ; publishes Foefs Harvest
Home, 303; last years, 321-34;
designs new hall for Penkill, 325 ;
prepares Aflennath, 330

Seddon, Thomas, painter, ii. 34

Selous, painter, i. 169

Shand, W. A. C, first friend, i. 87 ;
friendship at first sight, 88 ; holi-
day song by, 95 ; youthful plans,
97 ; offer to De Quincey, 98 ;
parting festivities, 100 ; his lin-
guistic ability, 131 ; reappears at
Newcastle, 202 ; last sight of,

204 ; poem on, 204
Sharp, William, ii. 180

Shelley, early admiration of, i. 88 ;
how qualified, 89 ; poem on, in
TaiVs Magazine, 91 ; Leigh Hunt
and, 128; at Lynmouth, ii. 139-
40

Sibson, Thomas, early friend, i. 87 ;
career, 153-56 ; at Newcastle,

205 ; his genius in art, "206 ;
specimen of his design, 207

Siddal, E. E. (Mrs. Rossetti), i. 315,
316 ; with D. G. R. in Paris,
ii. 30; marriage to D. G. R.,
58, 60, 62, 63 ; death of, 64,

Siddons, Mrs., Plenning's anecdote
of, i. 1 1 6

Skipsey, the pitman poet, ii. 269

Spiritualism, ii. 235

"Spur in the Dish, The,"' picture,
ii. 7

Steell, Sir John, sculptor, ii. 2

Stobhall, ii. 173

Stoddart's Death Wake, i. 80, 1 00

Swinburne, A. C., first met at Wal-
lington, ii. 14-18; portrait painted
by W. B. S., 18; his physical
courage, 19 ; his dislike of Louis
Napoleon, 46 ; a holiday at Tyne-
mouth, 68 ; first in W. B. S.'s
triple dedication, 212 ; dedicates
poems to W. B. S., 336 ; me-
morial verses, 339

Swinburne, Sir John, anecdote of, ii.
19 ; death of, 55

Symbolism in Art, ii. 283-89

TadEiMA, Alma, visits Penkill, ii.
203 ; contributes etchings to \V.
B. S.'s poems, 203, 204; his
mastery of his art, 205, 216 ; letter
from, 207

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, i. 297 ; a
political forecast, 300 ; Woolner's
bust of, ii. 29, 35 ; D. G. R.'s
woodcuts for poems, 35, 36

Thomson of Duddingston, clerical
amateur painter, i. 83

Trevelyan, Lady Pauline, reviews
Memoir, ii. 3 ; first visit to, 3-
6 ; W. M. R. and, 34 ; letters
from, 51-56; her character, 256;
selections from her writings, 257

Trevelyan, Sir Walter, ii. 3, 5 ; W.
M. R. and, 34 ; death of, 253 ;
his bequest to National Gallery,
259-61 ; bequest of his cellar to
Dr. Richardson, 261-63

Turner, J. M. W. , anecdote of, i.
84; ii. 9; in 1837, i. 106; on
ruin of Royal Academy, i. 109 ;
private sketches, 251

Valentine, Dr., ii. 321
Varley, the astrologer, i. 1 1 8

W

Wade, Thomas, poet, i. 253

Wailes, W., Newcastle art manu-
facturer, i. 189-91.

Wallington Hall, first visit to, ii. 3-
6 ; pictures there, 7 '■> exhibited in
London, 38, 66 ; decoration of, 67

"Wallace," picture of, i. 231 ; ii.
249

Ward, E. M., i. iii, 168

Watts, Theodore, ii. 180, 213

Weatherley, Captain, Chairman of
School of Design at Newcastle,
i. 179, 197; a Peninsular story,
211

Weingartshofer, Dr., citizen of the
world, i. 343-47 ; his exegesis, 345

Weir, W., i. 79

Whitman, Walt, Leaves of Grass,

346

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

sent by W. B. S. to W. M. R., ii.
32, 33 ; 267-69 _

Wilkinson, Garth, i. 22 ; his poetry,
298

Wilson, C. H., Director of Scliools
of Design, i. 179, 181

Wilson, John, "Christopher North,"
advises W. B. S., i. 71, 72 ; Car-
lyle concerning, 75 ! ^^•s after-
dinner speaking, 77 ; at breakfast,
78 ; receives a dedication, 83 ; gives
opinion of a poem, 89 ; opinion
of Shelley, 91 ; advice, 100

Woodchuck, the, ii. 159; epitaph on,
163

Woolner, T., introduces W. B. S. to
Carlyle, i. 269 ; his medallion of
Carlyle, 270, another, ii. 28 ;
his renunciation of poetry, i. 271 ;
My Beautiful Lady, 282 ; goes to
Australia, 295 ; letter after his
return, 305 ; news-letter from, ii.
29 ; his Wentviforth statue com-
mission, 30, 31 ; central sculpture

for Wallington Hail, 33, 34, 67 ;
bust of Tennyson, 35 ; on W.
Morris's poems, 42

Wordsworth, not so congenial to his
youth as Shelley, i. 88 ; a humble
imitator, i. 256

Wornum, R. N., i. 112 ; his wife.
Miss Selden, 156 ; a Sweden-
borgian, 160 ; in Cartoon Com-
petition, 168 ; lecturer to School
of Design, 328 ; death of, ii. 244,
249, 250 ; his " Saul of Tarsus,"
251

Year of the World, The, pro-
jected, i. 100 ; written, 234 ;
account of, 235-38 ; reception of,
238, 239; letter from G. H. Lewes
concerning, 238 ; from Emerson,
240

Young's Night Tkoitghts, i. 21, 68

THE END

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